


i think you think too much of me

by penceyprat



Category: The 1975 (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Issues, Genderqueer Matty, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Matty works in this coffeeshop and george keeps coming in, Mildly Dubious Consent (not between m/g), Sexuality Issues, Slow Burn, They love each other so much, he's just very confused about everything, he's trying his best really but he does need a bit of help, matty and george love each other a lot but they won't admit it, matty does this by ignoring all his problems and getting high and getting fucked, matty is absolutely shocking in this fic but he really is trying his best, matty tries really hard to convince himself he's not totally in love with george, this fic isn't all sad i promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-23
Updated: 2016-11-25
Packaged: 2018-08-16 21:48:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 136,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8118736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penceyprat/pseuds/penceyprat
Summary: This isn't love. This is just sex. This is just attention. Matty tells himself that's just what he needs. Just moments in which he can forget, in which the world blurs out and he doesn't have to focus on everything so very wrong with both his mind and his body. It's like getting drunk without the hangover, in his mind it's the perfect solution to the boy who could never love him back. He's just not quite sure whether that boy is just George, or himself too. No kind of high, physical or emotional, could possibly take all his problems away, but he's content enough with those moments, even if he always loses much more of himself than just the worst kind of thoughts.





	1. i already love this fic more than ive ever loved anything in this world

“There’s this boy.”

His words were a gentle beginning. Soft spoken in the evening light. It was just the two of them. A night like every other: almost routine. Yet it was far from the kind of monotony that chilled Matty to the core. This was comfortable, this was good. These were the nights that made him feel safe. Whether it was the slow conversations and the understanding look in her eyes, or just the endless glasses of wine.

“There’s  _ always _ a boy.” Gemma looked at Matty knowingly: her best friend of now coming close to five years. There was little questioning the fact that she knew Matty inside and out. She was pretty sure she’d heard this story a thousand times over already, but still she’d listen, because that was what she was here for.

“He’s different.” Matty continued: shaking his head: insistent. Gemma did wonder if this conversation would go the same way if they were entirely sober, but Matty never did talk about anything of importance when he wasn’t drunk enough to believe it was in some way a good idea. In the absence of the bottle of red opened on her coffee table, she doubted they’d be having such a conversation at all.

“Every boy is different.” She assured him, a slight roll to her eyes. “Trust me. I’ve been there. We all have.”

“He’s _ really _ different this time around.” Matty did a better job of convincing himself than he did in convincing Gemma. Despite the fact that he was already very much sold on the idea, as he was with everything. Because if Matty could be described as anything, it had to be impulsive. There was little doubt in that.

“How?” She let out a sigh, accepting that Matty was set on his own conclusions about this boy; there was hardly much else she could do to change that after all. “What makes him different? What makes you sure of that?”

“I just  _ know _ .” Matty looked away, biting his lip. He was the kind of boy who couldn’t help but feel like he knew an awful lot about the world, even at eighteen: a charming kind of pretentiously self-obsessed. The type that aimed to make a mountain out of every molehill just to climb to the top of them. 

“Gut feeling.” He added, doing all he could to rationalise the conclusion he’d come to.

“Gut feeling.” She scoffed. “Should try thinking with your brain and not your gut, though, how about that?” Gemma’s response was dry: evident that she was already growing tired with the glassy, dazed look in Matty’s eyes. 

The whole situation did seem harmless enough, and perhaps she should have felt warmed by the fact that Matty was comfortable enough to talk so openly about his sexuality with her. But it was the same story nearly every night; after all, Matty was the type to fall in love with everyone he passed down the street.

“Very funny.” Matty rolled his eyes, placing his empty wine glass down onto the coffee table with a satisfying kind of clink. He eyed the bottle next to it almost playfully: his mind stocked with a good hundred reasons as to why another glass of wine could only do him more harm than good. Yet more than anything, he just yearned for any kind of aid in tearing away at the mess of feelings inside of his chest.

Within seconds his hand was curled tightly around a second glass of wine. However, he found himself stopping for a moment: somewhat hesitant to bring the glass up to his lips. Instead he became rather fixated on the glossy black polish on his nails. It was chipping away already, despite the fact that he’d painted them just last night.

Gemma watched him with an all too familiar look in her eyes. It was a recurring thing: Matty and the thoughts that chased him back around his head, but he wasn’t nearly drunk enough to talk about them yet and they were both far too well aware of that.

“So there’s this boy.” Matty snapped out of it, starting again as if the past few minutes had never even taken place. He downed the glass in one go, setting it back down on the table with something closer to a slam: knuckles growing white as his fingers curled in around it.

“Matty…” Gemma became suddenly very conscious of the fact that the glass might shatter. Not that Matty really was the kind of guy that looked physically capable of something like that, but he had this odd kind of look in his eyes, the one he got when things started to completely overwhelm him. 

They sat there in silence for a minute: so painfully aware of everything unspoken, of the messes and monsters up inside their respective heads, but there wasn’t enough wine left in that bottle to touch upon even a fraction of it that night.

“So there’s this boy.” Matty tried for the third time, pulling his arms back to his chest, eventually resorting to biting at his nails to relieve some of the tension that had curled itself up inside of him.

“He comes into the shop a lot. Like more than just ‘I really like coffee a lot’. Like we’re not even Starbucks, what exactly is so enthralling about a shitty little latte with dodgy value cream on top? But he comes in a lot. Especially over the past two weeks - I think I’ve seen him everyday I’ve been in. And he always looks at me, you know? I guess you’ve got to look at a barista when you’re ordering coffee from them, but… I just like to think... I don’t know. He’s hot. I like to think that there’s no real reason for him to keep coming in all the time. I like to think he comes in for me.” 

Matty shook his head, almost forcing himself to laugh aloud at how ridiculous it all sounded. He took a moment to properly compose himself before continuing.

“I mean, it’s probably bullshit but, he’s hot. Not even just  _ hot _ exactly. He’s beautiful. He’s got these dark eyes and this wild hair and he’s got this denim jacket, and dear fucking god, he looks so good in it, and sometimes...” He trailed off, his voice softening a little as the truth became slightly less comfortable to deal with. “I lie in bed at night and think about him and that jacket. I think about him  _ out _ of that jacket. Out of all of his clothes. Sometimes I even think about getting down on my knees and sucking his cock.”

Matty swallowed hard, forcing his teeth down into his bottom lip in a desperate attempt to push that image out of his mind - for the time being at least. “So,  _ yeah _ .” He finally turned back to Gemma. “There’s this boy.”

There was a part of Gemma that felt that she ought to be at least a little startled by just how blunt all of this had been, but she’d known Matty long enough to ensure that nothing he said could really surprise her anymore. It was, after all, the very close to the same story every night, and the fact that there were very few boys that Matty wouldn’t jump at getting down on his knees for wasn’t exactly very much of a secret.

Still, this time around, there did seem to be something else. She wondered if it was a cause for concern, something to chase around her mind for days, or something so irrelevant it would be gone in the morning. It didn’t seem to be quite like that though. Not this time around. For real.

“So…” Gemma let out a sigh, stretching her legs out onto the coffee table: well aware of the fact that it was something her mum would kill her for, but what occurred when she wasn’t home wouldn’t hurt her. “He’s different?” She posed the question again, finding that this time around she was perhaps more inclined to listen to what Matty had to say for himself.

“Yeah.” Matty let out a sigh, closing his eyes for just a moment, fingers shaking in his lap. Really, he was shaking all over. It was going to be one of  _ those _ nights, and then one of  _ those _ mornings. Still, the ache in his chest remained persistent, dragging him down like an anchor, but with no desire to keep him safe at all. He let himself wonder, just for a second, if this ache, this emptiness inside of him, was just nothing to do with this boy at all. 

“Then ask him out.” She shrugged, suspecting that really it just wasn’t something that Matty was going to do; he fell in love with half of the world, but only ever fucked the boys that meant nothing at all.

“No.” Matty felt his voice almost curling up and dying inside of his throat; the worst kind of stomach butterflies growing inside of him: the ones that seemed an awful lot like they might be inclined just to eat him alive. 

“Then talk to him.” Gemma tried again, drumming her fingertips against the side of her empty glass. This was the part of the night where everything faded out, when they didn’t laugh anymore, when they were just drunk and tired. Drunk and tired with nothing to do, but chat shit and feel everything fall to pieces and crumble in the palms of their hands, believing that it was the perfect solution, until the morning could tell them otherwise.

“What am I supposed to say?” Matty was beyond the point of proper annunciation. Words were no longer words: just a messy drivel. But it was the look in his eyes that took to commanding the room like it was a stadium packed full of love and open ears.

“Hi. My name’s Matty and I really want to suck your dick.” Gemma offered, snorting a little as she did so. Matty didn’t seem to find it quite so funny; he was past the point of giggly drunk, he was just bitter, and everything hurt - inside and out.

“Somehow.” He let out a sigh, shaking his head. “I don’t think that’s going to do down that well.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll think of something.” Gemma announced, letting out a sigh as she got to her feet and grabbed the empty bottle and glasses, pausing just for a moment before she took them back to the kitchen. It was in that moment that she held Matty’s gaze with an almost patronising look in her eyes.

“What?” Matty’s voice was a muffled demand: hardly convincing, and all too short of inspiring.

“Or maybe not. Maybe you just won’t talk to him at all. Like every other guy. Like you always do.” She did try to make her tone somewhat pleasant, but it was just far too late and she was in anything but the right kind of mood. “Come on, Matty, this is the thousandth time. This is the thousandth boy.”

“But maybe he  _ is _ different.” Matty insisted, eyes falling to the floor, defeated somehow, perhaps just by the truth to it all. “Maybe I will talk to him.” He paused for a moment, pulling his gaze back up to meet Gemma’s; this time, there was a sense of determination hidden in his eyes. “No, you know what? I  _ will _ .”

-

Never had rainfall felt quite so vindictive, so purposefully spiteful, almost filled with the malice of a life long enemy, as raindrops fell from the sky in hordes upon that Thursday afternoon. 

George had pictured a peaceful kind of afternoon: slow, not particularly eventful, but at the very least, one in which he got something done. Namely the coursework he’d been putting off for weeks. It was getting pretty ridiculous at this rate, perhaps as if the world truly hated him; there wasn’t a doubt about the fact that George wasn’t going to make it home in this. 

There was no other word for it than torrential: pounding against shop windows with force enough to ensure that the buildings seemed to shake. George reckoned he might actually drown if he took his twenty minute walk home through this. He decided that it was for the best if he didn’t let that happen.

The simple fact of it all was that he had no other options. Although, part of him might have rather drowned than let himself retreat inside that cosy little coffeeshop on the end of the street. The one with the sofa in the corner of the room with the view of the highstreet, where he could stretch his feet out across the seat. The one with the free wi-fi, and the extra large cups of coffee, and the boy that smiled at him from over the counter every single time he went in. 

Eventually he formally declared the afternoon as useless and condemned himself to his faith: making a quick dash for the welcoming interior of the coffeeshop as, somehow, the rain did manage to worsen. He breathed a sigh of relief as he pulled down his hood once he stood safely inside the building, the warm glow of golden light beaming down on his face: doing wonders to highlight the fact that he looked just an awful lot like a particularly overgrown, and perhaps mutated, drenched rat.

The boy behind the counter smiled at him nonetheless. There was something about his smile though. George tried not to think about it too much as he ordered his coffee.  _ Tried _ . There was absolutely no guarantee that George had succeeded at all.

George left the boy with a meaningless comment about the weather, because he was mindless, and boring, and British. He caught that same smile before he retreated across the room to what he’d come to declare as  _ his _ booth. He then set his coffee down on the table in front of him, stretched his legs out across the seat, pulled out his phone and took a moment to watch the rain. George spent a moment desperately promising himself that he’d absolutely leave the very moment it cleared up.

But if there was anything George was renowned for, it had to be breaking promises he’d made with himself. He found himself still spread comfortably across the sofa as four o'clock became five, and still as five became six. By which point, the skies outside had settled into a dry, cloudy overcast. Still, it didn’t look particularly pleasant outside, and try as he might, George just couldn’t quite motivate himself to actually get up and leave.

He was, in fact, just awfully content with the idea of staying there, lost up in his own head for the rest of his life. That was until the moment that he became almost painfully aware of the presence of someone stood just over his shoulder, and the slow, steady footsteps that had led them there.

Almost as if hand in hand with that realisation, the world seemed to stop for a moment. It was a moment that almost seemed as if it might span on forever, with ever persistent looks held tightly behind ever forever hesitant eyes. But then, like all silences, it was broken.

“Hi.” His voice was squeaky, tentative, and in all the wrong places at all the wrong times. “Uhh… My name’s Matty.”

George jumped a little, turning his head over his shoulder all too fast, not really at all sure what it was that he might even expect to see, but before he could quite figure that out, he found that he was faced with the boy from behind the counter. 

And there was that smile, just as it had been before, and it was like everything inside of George had just stopped for a moment, cold and still: like the glass on the windowpane behind them, and the world outside. It was so distant somehow from that moment. The one that seemed to have pulled them in with all the force in the world.

“Hi.” George pulled his lips into a smile: nowhere near as bright as Matty’s, but a smile nevertheless. He introduced himself rather plainly, not quite sure what else it was that he could possibly do. “I’m George.”

And that was how it all began. 

“Hi.” Matty could do very little to stop the blush that flooded his cheeks, hovering nervously for a moment before he took the initiative to perch himself down on the end of the sofa across the table. 

“You come here alot.” Matty began in really the only place he could think of, wondering if his conversation and company was little more than a bore to George. But if he was being entirely honest in the matter, regardless of that, he just couldn’t help himself, not at all.

“Uhh…” George cursed to himself, stretching back against the wall and letting out a groan. “Yeah. I do. I know. I really shouldn’t. I hope it’s not weird or anything, like I’m stalking you or something, because I always see you, I just… I come here after college, because I don’t want to go home and get on with my work really. Things like that. And the coffee’s nice. The coffee's really nice.” 

George pulled his lips into a smile, and tried not to think about how he wanted to tell Matty that he thought he was really nice too. He reckoned that might come across in the wrong way.

“It’s not weird. I don’t mind.” Matty mumbled, drawing his eyes to the floor: finding his heart plummeting in his chest at George’s affirmation of the fact that this just wasn’t about him. After all, he’d been so sure of it all. That he was different. That he was the one, or something like that.

But he wasn’t.

Matty found the courage to look up again and instead saw a tall boy with slightly greasy hair and a denim jacket. Just a boy. Nothing special. No golden halo, no glistening crown. Just a boy. Like any other.

“College…” Matty latched desperately onto the only available topic of conversation George had thrust upon him, as after all, he’d sat down now. This was a conversation, this was a  _ thing _ , and his shift was over; he had nothing else left to do with himself.

“Yeah.” George nodded across at him, folding his arms, and meeting him with a kind of look that Matty couldn’t even begin to decipher: it almost seemed to be challenging somehow. “I go to college. You know, the one down that way.” He gestured vaguely out of the shop door with his hand.

Matty tried not to think about his fingers. His long, thick fingers. He bit his lip, silently cursing at himself and did did his best to focus back up on George’s face. He took aside a moment just to really appreciate how  _ normal _ George was, how sickeningly ordinary. How he was far from his saviour, or any kind of prince, or spectacle of the human race, or a god, not even really in his eyes. George was just another boy from down the street. But Matty would still fall for each and everyone.

He wished that just once that he could make an exception. It was exhausting, and there was something in George’s tone that made it explicitly clear that he just wasn’t interested in him. There was something more in those ugly trainers on his feet; the ones that looked almost exactly as if to be the posterchild for straight boy apparel. 

“Oh.” Matty gave a nod, looking anywhere but George’s hands, avoiding those long fingers at all costs. Finding himself only chasing the worst kind of thoughts out and around his head. “What course do you do?”

“Music.” George told him rather plainly, but almost as if he expected that might capture Matty’s attention, like he was the kind of boy who went around flaunting the slightest bit of musical talent for undeserved recognition and love from anyone with the few brain cells needed to take him seriously. Matty took a moment to remind himself that he hated those boys.

“Oh. Nice.” Matty did  _ try _ not to sound particularly bored out of his mind by George’s response. He reckoned however that it might not have worked awfully well.

“Yeah.” George bit his lip, looking a little worse off, like there was a certain element of regret hidden away behind his eyes, and really, Matty had never intended to properly upset him at all. Really, this whole mess wasn’t so much about George at all - he was just yet another boy. This was about Matty, this was about sorting his head out, this was about how he couldn’t help himself, this was about how he’d willingly let anyone fuck him, no matter how plain they were, no matter how boring they were, even if they were the most despicable person he’d met. He’d let them.

Matty reckoned there was something innately, well, fucked up, about that, but it was really not the kind of thing he was going to delve into at seven minutes past six on a Thursday, especially in front of someone he’d just met.

“Are you alright?” George asked, leaning forward a little and forcing what was easily the most excruciating eye contact Matty had ever had to endure.

Matty found that he just really wasn’t sure how he was supposed to answer that, especially with what looked to be a genuinely concerned look in George’s eyes. He shook it off. He insisted however that he was kidding himself, and did all he could to remember that he could find a boy like George on every street corner, and maybe half of them might even be vaguely interested in him. As logical as it was, his brain didn’t quite seem to take him seriously.

“Uhh… yeah.” Matty nodded, almost frantically. George was likely more than well aware of the fact that he was lying to him, but Matty told himself that didn’t matter. It wasn’t as if the truth would go down very well at all either.

“Alright.” George nodded to him; it was evident in his voice that he didn’t believe a word. But then again, they were just strangers, and this was just the most useless conversation: this was just the collapse of everything in over Matty’s head. This was reality finally coming to catch up to him.

“Yeah…” Matty dragged himself to his feet, avoiding looking George’s way as he did so. “I… uhh… I’ve got to go. See you around… George.”

“See you around.” He nodded, watching Matty go, and somehow, Matty left with no regrets, with no other thoughts tying him down, utterly convinced that this was the right thing to do. That had to be progress in some way; he had to be getting better at least. The only problem lay in the fact that he just hadn’t the slightest idea what it was that he could be recovering from: what it was that had made him that way in the first place.

However, as Matty reached the door, he made the fatal mistake of glancing back over his shoulder, only to find George meeting him with the most beautiful smile from across the room. He stopped for a moment, almost paralysed, caught in the warm, golden glow that seemed to radiate all around him. 

It was with that smile that Matty came to realise that he still felt the same inside: he realised that George wasn’t anything he’d thought he might be. He wasn’t different, he wasn’t special, he was perhaps even the definition of average and ordinary, but,  _ fuck _ , he was still beautiful. And he had what was easily the world’s most beautiful smile.

Despite that, Matty couldn’t shake a horrible kind of sinking feeling in his stomach as he made his way down the street, walking at twice his normal pace, almost as if he lived in fear that the harsh reality behind his own feelings was in a perpetual state of just very nearly catching up to him. Instead, all that Matty allowed to govern his head for that evening was an overwhelming sense of confusion, one that ended up panning itself out into one of his worst headaches. It was unpleasant, but at least it was something that he was sure he could deal with. 

But Matty did wish that it was all he had to deal with, as in reality, he instead found himself lost up inside the sickening sensation that he just didn’t quite fit up inside his head. Like he was all too big for his bones and all too small for them at the same time. Clear facts and writing had become smudged, like soaked ink, as he struggled to trust in anything he’d once knew. George was just the tip of the iceberg, really, and Matty just wasn’t quite ready to take a chance over whether or not he might sink.

-

When Thursday night became Friday, it became perhaps exceedingly obvious that certain feelings inside him refused to fade away: that time wasn’t the perfect healer, or perhaps he just didn’t have nearly enough of it.

George hadn’t spent any time at the coffeeshop that day. Matty couldn’t really blame him. He might have even imagined that he’d done enough to scare him off with that mess of an awkward conversation: strewn amidst his struggle to decode all that lay up inside his head. Matty decided that it probably would be for the best if he just stopped thinking about George. That would have been all well and good if he actually had the brains to listen to his own advice.

Instead, the very first thing Matty did when he got home that night was get into the shower and have a wank. He was quick to take advantage of an empty house, relishing in his parents’ absence. He did wonder just for a brief moment where his brother was, before brushing it all quickly from his mind. Somewhere, beneath all of his own mess, he was sort of vaguely aware of the fact that he might have been supposed to be looking after Louis tonight. But he found himself comfortable to settle on the conclusion that if his brother wasn’t here then he just couldn’t possibly be responsible for babysitting him.

Matty wasn’t really a bad brother. Just perhaps a bad person. Maybe not even that. He was much more unfortunate than anything else. Regardless, the questionable morality of the situation wasn’t something he allowed himself to dwell on in the brief minutes it took him to find his way into the upstairs bathroom.

He reached to switch the shower on before he took his clothes off, leaving a moment for the water to warm up properly as he faced his reflection in the bathroom mirror. It wasn’t narcissism, but he couldn’t quite take his eyes off himself; he held his reflection’s gaze rather firmly as he pushed his hair back away from his face and tied it up into a bun. He proceeded to stand there motionless for a good moment more, listening to the water hitting the shower floor, allowing himself to relax as the heat of the water vapour flooded the room. 

Maybe it was narcissism. All this staring at his own reflection. That did sound an awful lot like narcissism, after all. Narcissism, however, had an awful lot to do with being in love with yourself, and as Matty faced his reflection in the bathroom mirror that Friday evening, he felt perhaps  _ anything but _ admiration.

It wasn’t that he hated himself. It wasn’t quite like that. He wasn’t exceedingly fond of himself either. It was just something else. He found that he was uncomfortable more than anything, like his reflection knew something he didn’t, and like it was looking back at him with disgust, like it was all his fault. Or perhaps it wasn’t  _ disgust _ , instead just the overbearing sense that something was wrong: something he ought to have maybe figured out by now. Something he ought to have maybe even fixed by now. But Matty was clueless, the horrible kind of clueless: clueless verging on guilty.

He didn’t tear his eyes away from the mirror until it had completely steamed up. In the absence of his own reflection to serve as a distraction, he became increasingly aware of the fact that anyone could come home at any minute, and with that, he stripped his clothes off and stepped under the water.

Instantly, he knew that it was too hot. Scolding, in fact. Matty felt stupid to have expected any less. He slumped against the shower wall, letting each and every droplet burn a hole into his skin. It didn’t matter, really, or at least it just didn’t feel like it did. At least not in the scheme of everything, as there was a far worse kind of ache unravelling itself inside of his chest.

Not to mention his cock. But that was definitely the easier of the two problems to solve. Matty did really wish he could wank away the heartache too, but life just didn’t quite work like that. He’d figured that out first hand.

Matty could vow never to think about George again later. He could promise it to himself but only starting tomorrow, only after that night, after he’d curled his fingers around his hardening cock and finally let himself relax, his mind immediately directing itself to where it really wanted to go.

That was of course, George’s fingers. Matty didn’t even try and stop himself from thinking about them grasped tightly around his cock in place of his own. He thought of George’s hand: so much bigger than his own, with fingers that he didn’t doubt could wrap halfway around his waist. 

He thought of George’s hand covering his cock completely. He let the hot water burn into his shoulders, turning them an unattractive shade of pink, as he lost his mind with thoughts of himself growing hard against the palm of George’s massive hand. He thought of the other, wrapped around his waist, nails digging into the slope of his back as he pulled him closer. He thought of shuddering and shaking in that grip as he’d cum, with those nails leaving red marks across his back, and the image of his cock leaking out over those fingers of George’s that had burned into the back of his mind.

Then he made his worst mistake yet. He let his mind wander to George’s cock, where it would lay hard between his legs. He let himself ponder those long fingers and massive strong hands, and within seconds, Matty lost his mind just to the image of George’s fingers stretched across his own cock, not even managing to hold it all in the palm of his hand.

Matty tore his eyes open as he steadied himself against the shower wall: a desperate hand left an almost sinful mark in the condensation, as he’d grasped the wall for dear life, feeling like he might just collapse under the water, now feeling as if it might physically drill into his skin to lodge itself under his bones. Matty let his eyes flicker down to the drain, watching as the remains of his own lack of self control washed away with the water.

Suddenly, that was all so much for never thinking about George again, as there was no doubt, even the moment after it had all happened, that it was just something he’d never be able to get out of his mind.

-

He was only twenty minutes late after all, ending up around Gemma’s house no later than half past seven. Perhaps more like seven thirty five: just half past was pushing it. Admittedly, however, it wasn’t  _ entirely _ Matty’s fault; it had an awful lot to do with the fact that he hadn’t been able to find his keys again, having so frantically dumped them after first getting home that night. 

What definitely  _ was _ his fault, though, was the good fifteen minutes he’d spent sat on his bed with his head in his hands, wondering just when, if ever, he might be able get George out of his mind again. He really had fucked that one up for himself.

He’d hardly even had enough time to make himself look decent before he’d had to rush off out of the house, not so much in fear of what Gemma would say to him when he eventually turned up a good half an hour late, but the instance that someone might come home and stop him from going out. By this point in the day, Matty  _ needed _ this. He needed to see his friends, he needed to have a drink, maybe a bit more than a drink, and he needed everything that had been so caught up inside of him just to go away.

Gemma met him with an over-dramatised roll of her eyes the very moment she pulled open the front door. She had grown unfortunately accustomed to the fact that Matty tended to be late for near enough everything, and pretty much lacked the capacity to keep any part of his life in check. In moderation, it was mildly amusing, perhaps vaguely charming, but a solid twenty five minutes late was nothing more than tiring. Still, Gemma didn’t press the issue: reading enough off of the look in Matty’s eyes. Regardless this had never been a night intended for talking. 

“So you did finally turn up.” Amber called out, her tone oddly smug, as Gemma led Matty through the hallway and into the kitchen.

“Yeah.” Matty bit his lip, not bothering to figure out just what it was that Amber might have found so amusing about the situation, and instead reaching immediately for a bottle of wine from the cupboard.

“Marika bet me that you wouldn’t.” Amber explained, disregarding the fact that Matty really hadn’t asked. She smirked across at her girlfriend, who was attempting to make some sort of shitty cocktail out of whatever she could find around the kitchen, which amounted to a few bottles of wine, a couple of vodka, and a six pack of beer that had been abandoned at the back of one of the cupboards, coupled with a litre bottle of Ribena, and half a carton of Tropicana -  _ with _ bits.

Amber and Marika had been dating for a year now. They were that kind of disgusting cute couple that acted like they’d been married for fifty years, which was all lovely and well and good, but didn’t half serve as a blatant reminder to how shit your love life was in comparison. Still, Matty regarded them as two of the very few people he had the patience to stand: two of the very few people he’d happily spend this kind of Friday night with.

“What did she bet?” Gemma asked, watching Amber and Marika share a momentary glance: there was something innately mischievous about it, and Gemma really didn’t want to trust them at all.

“My jacket.” Marika answered her, opening and closing the fridge door for the fourth time, seeming incredibly disheartened by the lack of stuff inside of it. “Have you not got any proper juice or anything?” She turned back to face Gemma, but found instead that Gemma didn’t quite get the chance to respond to her.

“ _ My  _ jacket.” Amber corrected her, rather insistently. “The one you keep  _ stealing _ from me. I’ve had it since I was fourteen - that’s  _ four _ years. How can it be yours? Gem can prove it, she’s got that really dumb photo of us from like year ten-”

“It’s in my wardrobe, it’s  _ my _ jacket.” Marika was determined not to listen to her girlfriend, simply rolling her eyes instead. “Whatever, you’re going to come and steal it anyway-  _ Gemma _ , do we have any proper juice?”

“What’s wrong with that Tropicana there?” She gestured vaguely across the room towards the fridge. “That’s orange juice. That’s proper juice.”

“It’s got  _ bits _ in.” Marika pouted, hoping to gain any kind of sympathy from just about anyone, but found instead that things really weren’t going her way.

“Deal with it. It’s not like you  _ have _ to drink it.” Gemma rolled her eyes, reaching for a glass to get herself a drink: deciding that she nearly wasn’t drunk enough to deal with anything quite yet.

“Why would you  _ ever _ get juice with bits in though?” Matty came to conclude that this part of the conversation was important enough to ensure that his opinion was entirely necessary. “That’s fucking disgusting.” He took a swig of wine straight from the bottle: it had been a trying week.

“You’re fucking disgusting.” Gemma snapped; her initial idea of the night hadn’t involved practically babysitting Matty. At the very least, he’d seemed to be in a better mood since he’d arrived. She decided just not to question just how much that had to do with the wine. “Use a fucking glass.”

“Does it  _ really _ matter?” Matty’s voice was much more of a whine than anything else, shooting Gemma a pleading kind of childish look from across the room. He even glanced across at Amber and Marika for sympathy.

“ _ Yes _ .” Gemma insisted, sliding a glass across the counter towards him. “Can you try to at least have  _ some _ common sense until I’m drunk enough not to care?”

Matty nodded, almost politely, not questioning anything in her words as he reluctantly poured himself a glass of wine. Amber, however, didn’t seem quite so sold.

“Exactly  _ how _ drunk are you planning on getting?” Her eyes widened a little, glancing around the room, unable to stop herself from rolling her eyes at the fact that she was the only one who didn’t currently have a drink in their hand. “I thought we were making a point of  _ not _ going out. If you want to get absolutely pissed then why are we staying in?”

“Because I’m lonely and bitter.” Gemma supplied rather readily. “I don’t want to deal with stupid clubs or stupid parties or stupid boys. I just want to get drunk and have a laugh.” 

Matty found that he very much agreed with her, deciding that the very same could be the best medicine for whatever mess was going on up inside his head. “Yeah. I don’t want to have to go out and make an  _ effort _ . I look like shit, I feel like shit. That’s that.”

“Right… what’s going on? With the both of you.” Marika seemed to immediately give up on whatever kind of cocktail she’d been attempting to mix out of a glass of ribena and what was indisputably far too much vodka. “I’m not having the both of you being pissy and whiny for the rest of the night. Just get it out, get it out of the way and then just leave it behind.”

Gemma grimaced for a moment, finding that she wasn’t entirely convinced, but held Amber’s gaze for a second, catching the slight gesture across towards Matty, and the already empty bottle of wine beside him. She knew that was a problem they really did have to deal with, or the cause of it at the very least, as much as Matty was determined to never talk about anything of value ever.

“Yeah, alright, let’s go upstairs and I’ll tell you at great length about this fucking dickhead of a boy.”

“Great. Can’t wait.” Marika rolled her eyes, knowing that when Gemma got started, it really took her quite a while to stop.

“You  _ literally _ asked for it. Shut up.” Gemma shot her a grin, grabbing a bottle of vodka before she lead the way upstairs.

-

Gemma had been on the subject of the boy who’d stood her up the night before, or something like that - admittedly, Matty wasn’t entirely listening, for fourteen minutes now. Matty had been counting. Well, rather, watching the clock, following the second hand round and round from the foot of Gemma’s bed. He was sat a little further away from the three girls, who’d positioned themselves in a circle on the floor around a bottle of wine.

In those fourteen minutes, Matty had found that he’d drank a disgustingly large proportion of the bottle of vodka Gemma had taken upstairs with her. Matty thought about stopping, about putting the bottle down. But he didn’t. Like he’d thought about forgetting about George. But he couldn’t. Even now, as he struggled to remember where he’d been for the earlier portion of the day, those thoughts he’d gave into in that shower seemed to be permanently burned into his mind. Matty took a chance with a little more to drink: desperate for any kind of relief.

He wasn’t quite sure how it had happened, how he’d come to this point, but very suddenly, the loud conversation from the three girls had fallen into silence, the ticking of the clock on the wall seeming to reverberate around the room with the force of an earthquake. Perhaps more notably than that, he’d ended up stretched out across the bed, laying on his front, with a horrible kind of ache all over, and even more notably than that, all eyes upon him.

“What…?” He stumbled for any kind of grasp on what it was that had happened, but found nothing that came to mind. He could fixate on anything beyond the all too bright colours that surrounded him: blurring as he looked around too fast, and the thoughts he’d had of George earlier that evening: stark and untouched amidst everything else.

“You should stop drinking.” Gemma’s response was instant, and perhaps a bit rich coming from her and the wine glass she held in her right hand. Matty, however, was beyond drunk - instead just absolutely wasted.

“Mmm…?” Matty struggled to sit up, letting Gemma pry the bottle from his hands. Admittedly, he didn’t particularly want to drink very much at all, especially not anymore. He just wanted his head to stop. He wanted every persistent thought to leave him alone, because everything was just so very wrong. Matty felt as if he just might drown in an ocean of everything he couldn’t fix nor escape from.

“Matty, what’s wrong?” Amber’s tone was candid, having abandoned pleasantries entirely in favour of meeting him with an insistent look held firmly between her eyes.

“I’m fine.” He groaned, his voice muffled and his words slurred slightly, but regardless of that, he almost seemed to believe it himself.

“This is  _ not _ fine.” Marika added, glancing to the almost empty bottle that Gemma had taken away from him. “You blacked out. Honestly, you look like you’re going to be sick.  _ What’s wrong _ ?”

“No.” Matty continued to insist. “I’m  _ fine _ . I don’t feel sick, I just… I feel  _ everything _ , you know, there’s too fucking much of everything. I still can’t escape it.” He groaned, wishing for just one instance in which he could close his eyes and not immediately flash back to thoughts of George’s hands, coupled with the worst kind of fantasies.

“Talk about it.” Gemma told him, persistent in her tone. “It helps, trust me. What’s bothering you? There was something up since the moment you arrived - I  _ noticed _ .”

Matty shook his head, stumbling to his feet, and somehow managing to make it safely across the room. “I’m getting some water.”

“And then you’ll talk about it?” Gemma continued, determined not to let this go for anything in the world.

Matty bit his lip, hating the notion of it, but seeing no way out of this one. “Yeah. Alright.” He gave in, taking his chances, thankful for the slight confidence boost the alcohol had given him at the very least. As in the way of positives, it really hadn’t given him very much else at all.

-

It wasn’t until around forty five minutes later that Matty finally began to speak. He was in a notably better state than he had been before; still, he was just anything but sober, and the same thoughts were yet to leave him alone. He wasn’t sure if he had managed to get a better grasp on himself in the time, or if he’d just gotten to the good stage of drunk - the perfect balance between out of it and in control of himself. The stage where everything started to feel a little better.

Gemma had spent the time watching him intently, yet to give up on the promise she’d forced out of him. However, Amber and Marika seemed to have lost interest, worrying themselves so much more with their own drinks, and looking entirely too invested in each other, very much like they’d almost gone and forgotten that Matty and Gemma were also in the room.

Matty wasn’t sure what brought him to do it in the end. He knew for sure that it wasn’t the persistence of Gemma’s gaze, or the inviting silence in conversation that panned out in intervals for several minutes at a time, or even anything inside of him that longed to have it out in the open. If he had to put it down to anything, he’d go for the alcohol and the stupidity: the mess he longed to make, as if his drunken mind had simply grown tired of the safe and calm.

“I talked to him.” Matty began, voice louder than normal in order to ensure that he caught the attention of the room over the soft hum of music that seemed to be serving much more as just background noise that anything else. He turned and properly faced the three of them, although left his gaze to linger upon Gemma for that little while longer.

“Who?” Amber asked, her face making her confusion rather blatant.

Matty bit his lip: hard, harder than was entirely necessary. He found that there was some kind of control in that: breaking through the hazy trance of drunkenness, of the faded state he’d fallen into. “The boy from the coffeeshop.” He directed his words at Gemma, leaving it up to her to explain if she saw fit.

“Wait? Who’s this? What’s going on?” Marika leaned over, glancing between Gemma and Matty almost frantically. She was all too curious but Matty just couldn’t blame her.

Gemma let out a sigh, hating the expectant look in Matty’s eyes, as if he’d deemed it appropriate that only she explained. “Matty- look…” She took a deep breath, extending her gaze across to Amber and Marika for just a moment. It was just as she began to contemplate just doing it and laying the situation out for the two of them, that she came to the abrupt realisation that neither Amber nor Marika knew anything much at all in regards to Matty’s sexuality.

It wasn’t that he was keeping it from them. Why would he? Especially as they weren’t straight either. It was just down to the fact that he only ever did speak to Gemma about these things. Really, it was something they should have known, and never something Matty had ever made a serious effort to hide around them, but something that had slipped and faded away with the rest of everything else.

“What do you want me to say?” Gemma prompted, unsure if Matty was really sober enough to have a proper grip on the situation. She wasn’t particularly sober herself either, but she was sober enough to wonder if maybe she should suggest that they revisited this another time. Matty didn’t quite give her time to consider it, though.

“Nothing.” Matty told her, taking a sigh, and despite better judgment, reaching for her drink, downing it before he could stop her. “There’s this boy at the coffeeshop.” He flickered his gaze away from Gemma and instead towards the other two girls. “He comes in all the time. He’s like really tall, with messy blonde hair, and he’s got… he’s got the most beautiful smile.”

Matty looked away, unable to stop a similar smile from creeping across his face and spreading itself wide across his cheeks. “I told Gemma about him and she told me just to talk to him. Even though she thought I’d never do it, but I did.” He turned back to Gemma, meeting her with an almost smug look in his eyes. “I did. His name’s George. He’s nice.”

“So what happened?” Gemma continued, glancing only momentarily towards Amber and Marika, who seemed yet to have much of a grip on what it was that was really happening here. She decided it might be best if their questions came later. “Something did, didn’t it? That’s why you’re all…  _ weird _ . What did you do, did you…?” She trailed off, becoming suddenly very aware of the fact that this wasn’t just a conversation between the two of them, despite the fact that those conversations had just always been.

“No.” Matty’s tone grow irate, coming closer to snapping at her, as he too avoided the whole Amber and Marika situation. “I didn’t fuck him. Thank you very much. Oh come on, I knew that was what you were getting at. Nothing fucking happened, alright?”

“And why’s-” Gemma did try to respond, but this time around, Amber and Marika really did refuse to just sit quietly and listen.

“I’m sorry but  _ what _ ?” Amber was the first to speak, her gaze flickering frantically between Matty and Gemma in the hopes of some form of explanation.

“Did you say  _ ‘fuck him _ ’?” Marika added, a look on her face as if she didn’t quite believe it.

“Yeah, he did.” Amber assured her, nodding, before immediately turning her head back to Matty. “What’s-...” She paused for a moment, biting at her lip as everything finally began to sink in. “Fuck, this is why… why you’re all off, because we-... you wanted to tell us that you’re… gay?”

Matty swallowed hard. Neither Gemma nor himself had ever quite so directly addressed anything relating to his sexuality. He’d never once properly defined it and she’d never asked him to. He’d always found himself more concerned with the actual emotional logistics involved in his attraction to men as opposed to fitting himself under a label.

The word ‘gay’ echoed around his head for a good minute before he began to properly comprehend just what it meant in relation to himself. It wasn’t right. None of it was right. He couldn’t quite explain it, but it just didn’t fit, and instead found himself innately rejecting the term. That wasn’t him at all.

“I’m not gay.” When Matty eventually spoke up, his voice was calm, quiet, and in very much of a manner that had not been expected.

“Bi?” Marika asked, figuring that it was more likely for Matty, who she knew had been with a few girls in the past.

But again, Matty shook his head. The whole sexuality explosion still going off in the back of his head as he struggled to deal with the issue so full on. It was as if there was something else that prevented him from making sense of it, like something over complicating it: a whole other mess that he was just yet to figure out. Whatever it was, the pieces just couldn’t fit right, perhaps as if he’d been stuck with half of the pieces to the wrong puzzle in the first place.

“No.” He shook his head, growing quieter once more. “It… I don’t know. I’m not… I don’t know… I guess? I just… I’m not  _ gay _ . Like I’m not… that’s… not me… I don’t know. It just doesn’t.”

“Matty, look, I don’t mean any offence by it but talking about fucking guys can be considered pretty gay.” Amber did attempt to phrase it the most pleasantly she could, but there was no avoiding the startled look Matty met her with. It came across almost as if he was simply yet to realise that, but that really wasn’t the case at all.

“I didn’t fuck him. Nothing even happened. I didn’t even get his fucking number, you know?” Matty bit his lip, folding his arms across his chest as he struggled to pull himself out of the pit he’d suddenly been somewhat pushed into. “I mean… I guess it doesn’t matter, because he’s not interested in me, I don’t think. And I mean, he is just… average. I guess. He’s really not like the gay second coming of Jesus or something? He’s just… a  _ guy _ . He really is nothing special, but I don’t… I don’t know. I keep telling myself that but I still keep thinking about him, you know?”

“Just a guy.” Gemma echoed, somewhat inquisitive. “I told you that. He can’t be the be all or end all of everything. There were other guys before, there’ll be more in the future.”

“Wait… uhhh….” Marika interjected, unsure if it was really appropriate for her to ask, but found that she was drunk enough to do so anyway. “How many guys before? How long has this been a thing, really? I mean, of course, coming out is difficult, you definitely didn’t have to tell us, I just… I’m curious.”

“I don’t know.” Matty bit at his fingernails as he attempted to draw some form of answer out of himself. “I mean… I never really, woke up one day and suddenly wanted to get fucked in the ass. It doesn’t work like that, of course. It sort of happened gradually. I mean… I guess I’ve always been sort of attracted to guys, but I didn’t really think anything of it, until I was like  _ really _ attracted to this guy. And I guess yeah, then there was a day when I did wake up and want him to fuck me. That did kind of happen like that, but it was weird and confusing, and I didn’t want to deal with it, but now it’s just a  _ thing _ . It’s just me. It’s just natural.”

“So was this about the coffeeshop guy? That you were suddenly really attracted to?” Amber asked, doing her best to get her head around the situation in her current state of mind.

“No.” Matty shook his head, even going as far as to laugh a little. “This was like a good year and a half ago. There have been lots of guys since.”

“ _ Lots. _ ” Gemma added, nodding her head in agreement. “And he’s gone on in great detail about every single one of them, and just what he did with them, you know in the same  _ graphic _ detail.”

Matty blushed a little. Well, maybe more like a lot. “I say stupid things when I’m drunk. I’m drunk now, and I’m saying stupid things and you’re letting me. You’re letting me mope on and on about this guy from the coffeeshop. Like he’s called  _ George _ . That’s such a  _ boring _ name, like who the fuck is called George? Never let me mope about someone called  _ George _ .”

“It’s not stupid.” Marika told him, her voice softer than it had been before. “Matty, look, none of this is stupid. We want you to talk to us about these sorts of things. They’re important. Your sexuality is important, and look, you shouldn’t just ignore it.”

“I don’t want to deal with it.” Matty insisted, his voice growing harsher. “It doesn’t fucking make sense, and I don’t want to have to think about that as well as thinking about trying to not think about  _ George _ even though I’ve already fucked that up for myself because he’s got these fingers that are so long and so thick that it’s just fucking sinful, and I don’t even want to think about how that relates to his cock, but trust me, I have. And none of this is going to leave me alone. No matter how fucking ‘average’ or whatever he is, or no matter how much he’s not interested in me at all.”

“How do you know?” Gemma asked, trying not to dwell on the slightly less appropriate subjects that Matty had brushed over there. “That he’s not interested. You didn’t even ask for his number, so it’s not like you even gave him a chance to reject you.”

Matty shook his head. “I don’t want to deal with it. I don’t want to deal with him. I just want it all gone, I want my fucking head back, but that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen, especially not now there’s all this  _ sexuality _ bullshit. It doesn’t matter. But I’ve made it matter for myself now, because it should fit. It shouldn’t be too hard, should it? But it just feels all fucking wrong. Like it makes me sick, and no that’s not just the drink, even though I am stupidly drunk, and stupidly sick, and stupidly sick, I’m not stupidly gay, because I’m not even  _ gay _ .”

“Okay…” Gemma trailed off, finding that, as a straight girl, this was where the line of things she could and couldn’t offer advice on was drawn.

“So, are you attracted to girls?” Marika began, now desperate to sort this for Matty as she’d appeared to have caused him so much strife in the first place.

Matty bit his lip for a moment, somehow finding that he just wasn’t entirely sure what to say. “Not like with boys. It’s… I don’t… different. I very much prefer being with guys. But I mean… it’s not like girls  _ aren’t _ hot, I just… I don’t know. They are, I’d definitely kiss girls. I mean, I just… I don’t really think I’d fuck a girl again. I mean, I’m not like  _ put off _ by it or anything. It’s not like I find them unattractive or anything. I definitely  _ could _ , but I don’t really… I don’t know… right now. I just don’t want to.”

“That’s fine. You don’t have to worry about that.” Marika continued, even going as far as to break into a smile. “It’s sort of how you’d define attraction, isn’t it? Like, I guess whether you’d date a girl.”

“I don’t really  _ do _ relationships anymore.” Matty admitted, feeling the whole stupidly drunk speech take over again. “I just like getting fucked. Honestly. Maybe I don’t know… I could be gay. But I’m not. If I was… if it was different. I would be gay, but I’m not gay.”

“Why not?” Gemma asked, struggling to make sense of Matty’s train of thought anymore.

“Well… I don’t know.” Matty let out a sigh, falling back onto nothing before finally giving into his worst idea yet, and that was trusting the entirety of his feelings into the much more inebriated side of his brain. “Being gay is being… like… a guy who’s into guys. And that’s… that really could be me, I’m into guys. I don’t know, it’s weird, but I just don’t really feel like a guy myself.”

“Matty, I-” Amber was the first to speak once the room had suspended and almost froze in what Matty thought might have turned out to be a perpetual state of silence.

“No. Ignore that.” He insisted, shaking his head. “It doesn’t matter. I’m alright. It’s just… something I think about sometimes. It doesn’t make sense, I think talking about it, you know, making it real, it’s only going to make it worse.”

“Since when has that ever been true?” Gemma’s tone was stern, almost forceful. “Matty, come on, don’t be ridiculous-”

“Fucking leave it alright?” He raised his voice to a yell. “Will you ever just give up acting like you know everything going on in my brain? Because you really don’t, you know that?” With that he got to his feet and stumbled out of the room. “Leave it alright? For once?”

-

Amber had been the one to go after him in the end. Someone had to. Gemma had desperately wanted to, as that was the kind of thing they just did for each other, but it pretty clear that Gemma maybe wasn’t the person that Matty most wanted to see that night.

A couple of minutes passed before she found him: stood out in the garden with a cigarette grasped loosely between trembling fingers, looking up at the stars. It had gotten pretty late, the evening seemed to have faded out around them, and collapsed in on itself, as the tone of everything had quickly made its true identity known. This just hadn’t been the best of nights for harmless fun and stupid homemade cocktails; instead it had been something else entirely. That, however, didn’t necessarily have to be bad. It was left to them to make something of it.

“What?” Matty’s voice took the form of a shaky grasp for breath. He didn’t even bother to turn around, relying enough on the steady footsteps across the grass behind him, forever getting closer and closer. “I’m fine.” He continued to insist, hand still shaking despite his claims.

Amber didn’t try to argue with him. She knew very well as to just how stubborn Matty could be, and this really wasn’t the kind of night for any more arguments and mess. This felt like it all did mean something - a kind of something she’d have a much better grasp on if she wasn’t really quite drunk. Matty storming out had seemed to sobered everyone up a decent amount, but still, Amber couldn’t help but regret the state everything was in; it had hardly turned out to be the most pleasant of nights.

“Are you cold out here?” She asked, changing the subject in the hopes that with it, Matty might loosen up a little, or at the very least, just stop scowling at her like she’d burned his whole house down and physically shat on everything he’d ever loved. 

“I’m fine.” Matty persisted, his teeth sinking down into his bottom lip as he attempted to find something to say: something more than ‘I’m fine’, something that Amber might actually listen to.

“You’re shivering.” She told him, lightly pressing the tip of her index finger against Matty’s shaking fingers. Amber was unable to entirely distinguish as to whether it was down to the cold night air, or if it was more so to do with what had gone on inside.

“I’m not.” Matty argued back, despite the fact that he clearly was, and seemingly couldn’t do anything to control it. He brought his cigarette up to his lips, perhaps just in an attempt of distracting Amber from his fingers, and inhaled deeply.

“Then why are you shaking?” Amber couldn’t help but laugh a little; Matty’s argument was ridiculous - she couldn’t avoid that, and really, she was too drunk to stop herself.

“Because I keep thinking about what I said.” Matty seemed to speak his words entirely to the ground, averting his gaze from Amber as much as possible. “To Gemma mostly. But to you and Marika as well. I can’t stop thinking about that, and I can’t stop thinking about the sudden idea of  _ sexuality _ and fucking labels, and every label and every idea about it seems so fucking forced, and you know what? I still can’t stop thinking about George.”

“So you’re not fine?” Amber gathered, raising her eyebrows slightly as she wondered as to just how Matty had managed to come to that sort of conclusion with everything going on inside his head.

“No, I’m fine.” He assured her, deadly serious. His tone however, was forced, strained, and choppy: cut into with the kind of serious emotion that made it seem as if he just might cry at any moment.

“You don’t sound-” Amber began, arguing despite better judgement. Much as she had expected, Matty cut into her words before she could even finish her sentence.

“I’m  _ f- _ ...” Matty trailed off, shaking his head. “No, you’re right, I’m a fucking mess.” 

Amber couldn’t help but giggle at that, despite the fact that she knew she shouldn’t. Thankfully, however, Matty did too.

“So kind of you for taking my problems so seriously.” Matty rolled his eyes, his tone overly sarcastic and somehow much more tolerable out of seemingly nowhere. It seemed as if a switch had just flicked in his head somewhere, and that one switch had just gone and triggered a whole mess of everything.

“ _ Matty _ .” Amber shook her head, watching as he finished his cigarette and discarded it to the ground, putting it out under the heel of his shoe. “Literally all of us want to take them seriously. You’re the one that’s not letting us.”

Matty grimaced, shaking his head, looking an awful lot like the situation did something to physically repulse him. “You’re not helping though. Gemma’s always going on like she knows absolutely everything that’s going on in my head, and she’s always just  _ telling _ me what to do, and then Marika thinks she’s got my whole fucking identity figured out for herself and can just force it all on me, and it’s giving me a fucking headache. Or maybe that’s just the drink. Maybe both. I don’t fucking know.”

“They don’t mean you any harm. They’re trying their best. Come on, you know that they both love you and that they’d never want to upset you.” Amber met him with an insistent look in her eyes: this was something she was very prepared to argue over.

“I know.” Matty let out a sigh, his tone seeming somewhat reluctant. “It’s just… it’s making everything worse really. It’s like, suddenly everyone’s throwing me all kinds of questions that I didn’t even know could be questions, let alone what their answers might be.”

“No one’s pressuring you or expecting you to entirely have yourself figured out. Don’t think that we are. We just want to help you.” Amber met him with a smile, hoping desperately that she might get somewhere with all of this.

“I want help. Fuck, I have no idea what I’m going to do about anything, about any of this, but I just. I just don’t want help like that.” Matty bit his lip, suddenly speaking more quietly than ever before.

“Then what do you want?” Amber spoke slowly, perhaps even tentatively, as she struggled to imagine just what Matty’s response could be.

“I want it all to fucking go away.” Matty choked out, unsure even himself if he was closer to laughing or crying. It was all a fucking mess and he needed another fucking drink, but he was drunk enough as it was.

“Problems don’t tend to just go away by themselves, Matty. You’d probably have to solve them for that.” Amber could tell that her words weren’t going to go down very well; they were, however, the truth, and that was something Matty was just going to have to deal with.

“How?” He shook his head and reached into his jacket pocket, lighting himself another cigarette, before offering the packet across to Amber.

“I know you’ll want to kill me, but talking it through with someone usually helps.” She avoided his gaze as she placed a cigarette between her lips, reaching to borrow his lighter and struggling to get it working for a few moments. “Why is it so stiff?” She grumbled, clicking at it frantically.

Matty gave way to a small smile, shoving his lighter and the, now nearly empty, packet back into his pocket. Proceeding that, he took a drag of his cigarette before he even thought about responding, know all too well, that he was going to need it.

“Alright. Whatever.” He exhaled a cloud of smoke into the night air. “Just not, not with them, not now. You’re the only one not trying to force your own opinion down my throat, really.”

“Are you  _ actually _ agreeing to talk about my problems with me?” Amber almost took a step back: astounded.

“Yeah.” Matty rolled his eyes, able to find just a little bit of amusement in the situation. “I’m drunk. Look at me, this is the night of bad decisions, this.”

“Definitely not the best night is it?” Amber nodded in agreement.

“Not the worst either. Not by a long shot.” Matty only came to wonder if that was really something he should have said until after it had slipped his lips. Amber did look at him oddly for a good few moments but she didn’t press the matter, and for that, Matty was thankful. 

“So… I said something back there… I… I guess I said I’m… not a guy, and that’s… that’s  _ weird _ , because I don’t know where that’s come from. I mean… I obviously am a guy, but I… it didn’t feel wrong. Saying it didn’t feel wrong, it didn’t feel wrong like those ideas of sexuality did.”

“What do you mean? That you’re  _ obviously _ a guy.” Amber took a moment before she responded, trying her best to take in and fully understand everything Matty had told her, even in her current state, which she reckoned was definitely improving; she could feel the oncoming headache, so she really did have to be sobering up.

“Well… uhh…” Matty stumbled, gesturing towards himself. “I have a dick.”

“That’s not how gender works though, is it?” Amber met him with a questioning look, unsure just how much of a grasp Matty had on the logistics of gender overall.

“Is it?” He scrunched up his face in confusion. Amber nodded. “How does it work then?” He continued to ask, his hands beginning to shake again, and this really couldn’t be passed off as just the cold.

“It’s…” Amber trailed off, giving herself a moment to prepare herself to properly explain it. “It’s much more mental than physical. I mean, if you think about it, it makes sense that way, doesn’t it? Gender is how you feel you identify. Matty, your dick is irrelevant.”

“That’s a first.” Matty commented, unable to help himself.

“Shut up.” She rolled her eyes, shoving him slightly, waiting a moment until the silence settled back in over them before continuing. “Gender’s like… a spectrum, really. That’s how I’ve best heard it described. There’s point A, and let’s say that’s male, like entirely male, the most manly macho man in the world.”

“Obviously me, that.” Matty snorted, glancing down at the chipped remains of polish on his fingernails.

Amber rolled her eyes. “And point B is female, the most feminine, girly, girl in the entire world. So like, most people don’t sit exactly on point A or point B, do they? Typically, people fit closely to one end of the spectrum, they’re comfortable there, but really, you can be anywhere on that line between A and B. You could not even fit on it at all, or you could fluctuate on that spectrum. Nothing’s fixed about it, it’s not putting things into boxes at all.”

“I like that.” Matty admitted very quietly. “I’m scared of it, but it makes sense.”

“Scared of it?” She asked, a little concerned for what kind of mess this could have spewn throughout Matty’s head.

“Yeah. It’s a lot to think about really.” Matty bit his lip, trying to properly regulate his breathing. “But I like it. It makes sense. That was the problem. I was thinking in terms of two boxes with everything, and nothing ever did fit in either. I guess that’s why everything’s such a mess.”

“I mean, you obviously don’t have to know exactly how you identify immediately. I mean, really there’s no pressure to know at all ever, but I guess it’s nice that. To know. Don’t you think? It goes the same way with sexuality.” Amber offered him what she hoped came across as a comforting smile.

“Thanks, but can we stop talking about it? I’m drunk and I can just… feel this being a bad decision.” He blushed, quickly averting his gaze. “I just… it’s a lot to think about, and a lot that I don’t want to have to wrap my head around right now.”

“Alright. We can talk about something else.” Amber gave a nod, taking a moment to herself to think before she continued. “Is this boy still bothering you as well? What was his name again? George?”

“Yeah. George.” Matty nodded, biting his lip in a furious attempt not to allow himself to think about anything to do with George at all. He didn’t quite see how this conversation could possibly help with that, but Amber had been right so far, and he really didn’t have much of a better idea.

“What’s he like?” She prompted, sounding noticeably more interested than she had when Gemma had spoken about the boy she was currently caught up with. Admittedly though, Matty was hardly in the position to be rambling on forever about it; Amber was rather thankful of that.

“He’s… uhh… tall. He’s really tall, literally looks like he could be double my size, honestly. He’s nice. I mean, we haven’t really spoke very much, well not properly, he’s come in for coffee like nearly everyday for the past three weeks, so like we talked but it was like just him ordering coffee, that’s kind of different, isn’t it? But then like… yesterday… I properly spoke to him. After my shift I went up to him. He’s nice. But it was like really fucking awkward, and really I don’t think he’s as hot as I thought he was. He’s kind of average really. And his hair’s kind of weird, it’s a fucking mess, honestly. I guess it does work for him, but it’s like sticking up everywhere, with like random patches of brown and blonde everywhere, like honestly, he had to have dyed it himself. But he’s… I don’t know. He’s got this beautiful smile, but I guess it doesn’t matter. I like thought it’d be magical and everything, you know, like I go up to him and suddenly there’s fireworks or something, but it was just… you know… kind of  _ boring _ . A bit shit maybe?”

“Were you actually expecting fireworks and shit? You know that doesn’t happen in real life. It was average and awkward and boring because you’re real people who just met. It was real, that was what it was.” Amber almost went as far as to roll her eyes, but Matty looked a little too emotionally crippled by that point for it to be a good idea.

“Well it’s not like there’s anything I can do about that now, is it? Chances are he’s going to never come into the shop again because I scared him off or whatever, and it’s not like he’s going to want to talk to me is it? It was fucking awkward. It was fucking weird. I don’t think he’s worth particularly worrying about though… I just…” Matty trailed off, seeming at a loss for words.

“You can’t stop thinking about him.” Amber finished for him, finding herself deep in thought - there was definitely something she’d missed in all of this. “That means something by itself, don’t you think?”

“Well, it’s not like I’m going to creepily talk to him again if he actually does come in again, so guess, I’m just going to have to get over it. I mean, Amber,  _ honestly _ , he’s not even that hot.” 

Amber found that she didn’t really believe Matty just as much as Matty just didn’t really believe himself.

“You know…” She trailed off, desperately trying to pinpoint something at the back of her mind. “This George.  _ George _ .  _ George _ .  _ George _ .” She repeated to herself. “You don’t know his last name do you?”

“No, Amber, we didn’t introduce each other with our whole life stories, surprisingly not. His name’s George. I know that. I actually don’t know how old he is either. Could be like thirty, he could be my sugar daddy or something.”

“ _ Thirty _ ?” Amber’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Did he look thirty?”

“No.” Matty shook his head, laughing. “He looked about our age, I guess. Maybe a bit older, I don’t know. Shit, wait- he said he goes to college, so he has to be our age.”

“College?” Amber repeated, somewhat astounded. Matty nodded. “What? The same college that  _ I _ go to?”

“Shit. Yeah. Probably. Yeah. Shit.” Matty’s eyes widened, staring at Amber in disbelief. “Fuck, do you know him?”

“I actually think I do, yeah… I… not very well, but I’ve seen him around I think. Like literally six and half feet tall, all this messy hair, brown eyes, I’m pretty sure he sells weed, but I don’t know that for certain. But he’s definitely the kind of guy you go to for weed, I just don’t know if he specifically  _ sells _ -”

“Fucking hell, Amber, I…” Matty was speechless, suddenly finding that he just didn’t know what to think at all. “You could have told me earlier, you know-”

“I was a bit preoccupied honestly, I mean I only just found out you were into guys like maybe two hours ago, it’s been one hell of a fucking night, Matty.” Amber let out a sigh, unsure just where Matty wanted to go with all of this.

“Come on, though,  _ honestly _ . Did you not guess? It’s not like I’m the posterchild for heterosexuality at all, is it? I guess it’s kind of obvious. I look like the kind of person that likes getting fucked. I mean, yeah, there’s no  _ type _ of person like that, like you don’t have to look a certain way to like it up the bum, I  _ know _ that. I’m just saying, if there had to be a type… I’d be it, wouldn’t I?”

As mangled and distorted as it was, Amber had to admitted that Matty sort of had a point somewhere amidst all of that.

“Alright.” She let out a sigh, letting Matty force whatever stereotype on himself that he wished. “So… this George… George Daniel-”

“George Daniel?” Matty repeated, grimacing a little. “That’s two first names. Come on, that’s not a proper name. I can’t actually fancy him he doesn’t even have a proper lastname. This is ridiculous. Fucking George Daniel. Who the fuck calls their kid George? Who’s ever looked at a baby and gone, ‘oh yeah, that looks like a fucking George?’”

“A lot of people.” Amber told him, shaking her head in disbelief. “Look, Matty, let’s be honest here. This sounds an awful lot like you’re just making excuses now. You do fancy him, even if only just a little bit.”

“I just don’t want to  _ deal _ with it.” Matty groaned, finding in someway, this had just made the whole situation worse. “It’s just… not worth the bother, is it? I’ve already kind of fucked things up.”

“Come on, Matty, you said it yourself. You can’t stop thinking about him, and it’s pretty obvious that you fancy him quite a lot.” Amber’s eyes seemed to bore into him as she spoke. Matty hated that she seemed to know more about him than he did, but it seemed like he just had to deal with it.

“Fine. I fancy him a bit. Whatever.” He snapped, finishing his cigarette and stumping it out into the grass. “Are you  _ happy _ now?”

“Are  _ you _ ?” Amber turned the question back onto him. “I think you might be. I can get you his number pretty quickly. I could probably even talk to him for you, explain all of this mess of emotions for you. If you asked me  _ nicely _ .”

“No.” Matty shook his head. “Fuck no. I mean, that’s lovely of you, but fuck no. I can’t deal with this. I couldn’t actually deal with him again, I don’t want to put myself through having another  _ conversation _ with him and trying not to think about getting off to him.”

“ _ Matty-” _

“No, Amber, absolutely fucking not. It can only go wrong, look come on, he’s probably straight, for a start. I don’t want to deal with that. I need to figure myself out first, I mean, I wouldn’t want to spend a first ‘date’ or whatever trying to explain whatever kind of mess my gender could possibly be? Not that we’re going to have a date or anything like that, because he’s probably straight and I’m probably going to die because of the hangover I’ll have tomorrow, and it’s just… it’s not going to happen.”

“Just give-”

“Not going to happen.” Matty repeated, shaking his head at her, before making his way back up towards Gemma’s house, deciding that he’d much rather deal with what Gemma could possibly have left to say to him than arguing with Amber over this.

Amber would have liked to have run back in after him, but she reckoned she’d done enough of running after Matty for one day. She’d helped him as much as it seemed like he was going to let her, and that was definitely something. Instead, she took a few minutes to finish her cigarette before following him back inside; everything else would just have to fix itself, as she was definitely done for the night. And really what a rollercoaster of a night it had been.

-


	2. matty is terrible but i love him so much

“Fuck.”

When Matty awoke, the sunlight tore into the room with a blinding brightness. He lay there doing little more than squinting and groaning, in the bed in the spare room, for a good three minutes. 

He was too cold, with the sheets curled tightly around only half of his body, and too hot at the same time, as he found himself sweating all over, having fallen asleep in last night’s clothes. He hadn’t spoken to anyone since he’d come back inside last night; he’d left Amber to explain it all at her leisure, finding that he didn’t really mind what became of everything anymore.

Really, the only thing he could focus on that morning was his hangover. Somehow, it had managed to be worse than he’d expected. His mind felt empty like a cavern, but crumbling at the seams, as if the more awake he was, the more everything was caving in. The destruction of everything was inevitable, and Matty lay there, deep into the morning, just letting his head cave in on itself: bitter and regretful of the night before.

The only benefit he found to having passed out in last night’s jacket was the easy access to his cigarettes; something he couldn’t deny that he needed in that moment. He dug into his pocket and lit one up, gazing across at the open window curiously. From the bright light making its way into the room, he could tell that it had to be somewhere around noon. Despite that the bright sunlight gave him no form of motivation to actually get out of bed.

It didn’t take Matty long to conclude that anything he’d discussed last night was off limits. Reality was harsh and bitter when he was sober - it was all far too unpleasant for his taste, and despite his hangover, Matty was just more than certain that he could keep everything at bay if he just tried hard enough.

It was all a fucking mess really. A mess he was quite frankly terrified of. He would let the others think what they wanted of it, but he was certain that the last thing he’d ever want to do was to spare one of his own thoughts away to his great wreck of emotions and half right feelings.

“Fuck.” He repeated aloud, just to himself, just to the silence of the room: the quiet of Gemma’s house looming all around him. 

At the back of his mind, he was sort of vaguely aware of the fact that he really should be getting out of bed soon, but he just wasn’t quite ready yet. There was also the fact that he really did reckon that the moment he got to his feet, his head might as well snap straight from his neck and roll off his shoulders, and topple right down to the floor. It was that kind of hangover: one of his worst. 

But still, the worst part of it all, by far was the fact that he could remember every second of the previous night in vivid detail. As in the Saturday morning light, Matty felt that if he could have one wish in the whole world, it would be a wish to forget it all, for everything to truly go away.

-

A good half an hour later, Matty finally pulled himself out of bed and to his feet. He did his best not to literally collapse onto the floor as he stumbled downstairs in a desperate rush for a glass of water, or some paracetamol, or anything really.

The very moment he set foot in the kitchen, however, he came to accept that no matter how late he’d left getting out of bed, it was always going to be too early for him to deal with what lay ahead of him.

“Shit- fuck- I thought you’d gone home- I-” Gemma let out a shriek and frantically pulled away from a dark haired boy who’d pinned her up against the wall, their lips connected in a manner that was entirely too graphic for a Saturday morning. The guy was tall and handsome, but with a nose that was far too big for his face.

Matty raised his eyebrows, smirking a little as he stepped into the kitchen and began to root around in the cupboards for a glass. He found that he was just far too hungover to deal with this; not that he’d really care very much either way - they both still had their clothes on, after all.

“I’m going soon, don’t worry.” He rolled his eyes, scoffing a little as he sipped away at his glass of water, bracing himself before slowly turning back to face the two of them.

The guy had distanced himself from Gemma significantly, striking Matty a look that gave the impression that he was somewhat terrified of him. And really that was what had Matty stumped the most of all: he was hardly even convinced that he could frighten off a fly. Oddly enough, though, Matty found himself considering this all a blessing, as he knew for certain that Gemma wouldn’t try to bring up some of the more delicate points of last night in front of some guy Matty had never even met.

“So who’s this?” Matty gestured vaguely at the guy beside her. He didn’t actually care, he just thought it a better alternative to staring mindlessly at one another through the silence.

“Ryan.” His voice squeaked a little as he spoke, looking Matty up and down with an indistinguishable kind of look in his eyes. “My name’s Ryan.”

Gemma stared expectantly at Matty for a good minute, pressing him to respond: to care to return the courtesy. Instead, Matty busied himself with finishing his glass of water and carefully setting it down on the counter behind him.

“This is Matty.” Gemma eventually grew impatient and filled in for him. “He was over last night.” Ryan shot her an astounded look. “Fuck-  _ no _ . Not like that, we-  _ no _ , Jesus Christ, no, we-”

“I like cock.” Matty cut in rather crudely. His lips crawling up into a smug kind of grin, as both Gemma and Ryan looked at him with eyes blown wide. There was just something euphoric about it saying it aloud, about saying it like it held no weight over him at all. Although, that was a reality that Matty could only dream of.

“Yeah…” Gemma let out a sigh, doing her best to pad out the stunned silence. “He likes cock.” She explained, glancing hopefully up at Ryan, who just nodded vaguely: unable to take his eyes off of Matty.

“What?” Matty scoffed, so very aware of Ryan’s eyes fixated on him, taking him in with a kind of awe and wonder that did an awful lot to dehumanise him for a Saturday lunchtime. “You never seen a real life queer before?” Matty shook his head in disbelief, laughing a crude kind of bitter chuckle. “Fucking brilliant.”

Matty snorted, the sharp, white hot pains of anger coursing through his body and numbing his nerves almost entirely. It was as if, in that moment, his sexuality meant nothing, as if him as a person held no value. It was just about justice and what was right; what he wouldn’t let average looking straight boys think and say about him.

“No, I-” Ryan quickly snapped out of it, shooting Gemma a desperate kind of pleading look, as if he’d thought, even just for a brief moment, that she might have been on his side over Matty’s. “I just… wouldn’t think that you were. Surprised me, that’s all.” He mumbled, shooting Matty the world’s most desperately pathetic apology.

“Surprised you?” Matty scoffed, slamming the cupboard door with entirely more force than was necessary, before turning to make his way out of the kitchen. “Doesn’t sound very bloody likely does it? Look at me. Jesus Christ, take one fucking  _ look at me _ . It’s like how it took me one fucking look at you to guess that you’re probably the most ignorant straight boy in the world.”

“Thought sexuality had nothing to do with how you look?” Ryan was close to sneering at him. Like he found this all desperate funny, or perhaps in just one last ditch attempt to break the awkward manner of the situation.

“Thought being a cunt had nothing to do with how you look, but I’ve never fucking met anyone who’s equally as physically and mentally repulsive as you.” Matty didn’t give him chance enough to respond before he slammed the door shut behind him. He didn’t even give Gemma so much of a glance; he could deal with her take on all of this later, or he could just ignore it all until the day he died - really, either seemed like a fantastic option.

Matty lit himself another cigarette as he made it out onto the street, shoving his headphones into his ears, and doing all he could to shut off the world: spending time, trying to kid himself that what had happened with Ryan hadn’t cut into him in ways he couldn’t even explain. Eventually, he just added the experience to his ever-growing collection of things he just never wanted to think about again. With that, he quickened his pace, desperately wanting to get home and to bed more than anything else in the whole world.

-

The house was busy. The moment Matty got through the front door, he was instantly hit with noise. Too much noise. A whole world of noise coming from only a few rooms. It was too loud and too much, and Matty was just far too hungover.

He stood there for a moment, taking it all in: the hum of the TV from the living room, the muffled sound of the radio on in the kitchen, interrupted by the sounds of the washing up - plates falling into the sink, and the steady running of the tap. Amidst this all was conversation, faded and indistinguishable, but still, to Matty, it was the loudest of all of the sound in the entire world.

As much as he didn’t want to confront it all, as much as he just wanted to quietly make his way upstairs and lock himself in his bedroom to just deal with everyone and everything so much later, curiousity did get the better of him. He couldn’t quite understand it properly, but really, Matty couldn’t quite understand the majority of what was going on in his life anymore. Pushing all rational thought aside, he placed his keys down on the table beside the door, slipped his shoes off, and trusted in his feet to guide him through the hallway and into the kitchen. 

Matty was met at the doorway with looks of surprise and even awe from both his mother and his brother. The two practically froze mid sentence, instead turning to stare at him from where they stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room.

“Hey.” He let out a sigh, speaking just to fill the silence, glancing vaguely between the two of them, before reaching around through the cupboards behind him in search of some paracetamol.

“Where were you last night?” His mum had evidently decided to cut out the pleasantries entirely, meeting him straight with a sharp, almost bitter tone. It wasn’t spiteful, just concerned: the kind of concern you couldn’t help but harbour when your eldest son suddenly turned up at one in the afternoon in yesterday’s clothing and his hair sticking up all over the place.

“Gemma’s.” Matty supplied readily, not doing so much as to turn back and glance at his mother, instead busying himself with taking a pill from the box of paracetamol and getting himself a glass of water.

“Gemma’s?” She repeated, eyebrows raised, almost like she didn’t quite believe him.

“Yeah.” Matty answered hotly: his voice quick and sharp. “Are you actually doing the washing up are you just planning to leave the tap running for fun?” He gestured towards the sink, where the washing up lay, half done and abandoned. He didn’t wait for her response before he reached over and turned the tap off, leaving room to ring with a new, almost unnatural kind of silence.

“Matthew-” She began, agitation evident in her tone, despite that however, she did her best to keep it all under control, not really wanting to start yelling in front of both of her sons.

“ _ What _ ?” He snapped, everything seeming to rise to the surface inside of him, and all out of what seemed to be nowhere. He turned back around to face them, leaving her watch to as he swallowed the pill, washing it down with half a glass of water.

“Are you hungover?” Her eyes widened slightly, looking him up and down in a state of disbelief.

“Yeah. What? I’m eighteen. I am  _ allowed _ to get drunk. It’s perfectly within my  _ right _ to be hungover, I’m not your little kid anymore, alright?” He slammed the glass of water down onto the counter.

“You were supposed to be babysitting your brother and instead you were out getting drunk with Gemma.” Denise repeated it all aloud, almost as if she just couldn’t quite believe it herself.

Matty nodded in confirmation. “I forgot.” He added in his own defence. “About babysitting.” He gestured vaguely as he spoke, turning briefly to his brother, who had retreated away to the back wall of the room. He offered him a brief kind of apologetic smile. “Sorry, Lou.”

“You forgot?” His mother repeated, eyes growing wider by the minute. “You can’t just  _ forget _ about your brother-”

“Well, looks like I did- what do you want me to  _ do  _ about it? I’m  _ sorry _ . But look, there’s nothing I can about it now, it’s not like I can go back in time and fix it all, can I? Because honestly that seems an awful lot like what you want me to do here-”

“Matty, that’s not-” She shook her head, turning between her two sons and shaking her head. “Doesn’t matter. We can talk about it later, when you’re not in such a mood. Just go and get some rest, alright?”

Matty studied her dubiously for a good moment. Part of him couldn’t quite bring himself to trust in the situation at all. Her letting him off like this seemed just far too good to be true, but if Matty knew anything it was that maybe he just ought not to question it.

“Alright.” He nodded, grabbing himself another glass of water before wordlessly making his way upstairs, far too aware of the way their conversation instantly resumed in his absence. He tried not to concern himself with what it was they’d been talking about, what it was that they’d so obviously thought to exclude him from, and how much his absence just hadn’t seemed to matter so much to either of them at all.

Matty tried not to let it get to him, but it did. He couldn’t help himself. Really, he was the posterchild for helplessness: stretched out and crumbling at the seams. But he sat down on his bed and wished for a world in which everything was better, the world made sense, and he just wasn’t scared of anything anymore.

-

His next Saturday morning came to be significantly more depressing than the one prior to it, but at the very least, this time around, he found that he’d woken up without what felt like the whole world exploding inside his skull. He had that going for him.

Matty didn’t want to feel particularly melodramatic or anything like that, because as Amber had assured him, this wasn’t some kind of cliche movie, this was reality life, and they were real people, and this was how real things went down, but he hadn’t seen George since last Thursday. Last Thursday being the day he’d first spoken to him. And really, Matty had tried not to make a mountain out of a molehill here, but he just couldn’t stop himself, if only just for a crippling want to find something worth climbing to the top of: to make meaning out the monotony that had frozen over his everyday life.

Last weekend had turned out pretty shittily, but that meant nothing to say that this weekend was in anyway better. He did try to focus on the positives, even though they were few and far between, they were there: he’d spent some time with Louis on Sunday to make up for Friday night and that had definitely served to be the highlight of his week, and then on Wednesday, he’d gone over to Gemma’s again, and they’d sat around being boring and sober and talking about silly things that meant nothing at all. The highlight of that night had perhaps just about been Gemma finally getting Ryan out of her life for good.

It turned out that Ryan had been the guy Gemma had been upset about on Friday night. The one she’d gone on for a quarter of an hour, despite the fact that Matty hadn’t picked up a single word. He’d been an asshole all along, and really, that shitshow last Saturday morning had been the final straw to it all.

Still, all of that did nothing to remedy the mess than continued to crumble to pieces around his head, because despite the passing of seven days, because despite the time to himself, because despite the time to think, Matty still hadn’t the slightest clue as to what it was that he was actually supposed to do in answer to the great conundrum that was his gender, sexuality, and general identity. And then there was the fact that despite not having so much as looked at him once since that Thursday, Matty still couldn’t get George out of his head.

The best, and really only solution he’d found to everything was just to do his best not to let himself think about them. He wasn’t stupid enough to kid himself that perpetual ignorance was any kind of secure or permanent solution, he was just emotionally weak enough to go along with it for the time being. And really, it had all been going decently well enough for him until the very moment he’d dragged himself into the shower and curled his hand around his cock, his head going to the very same place it had every night since the Thursday that had started it all.

And then, as if his life wasn’t depressing enough already, Matty got out of the shower after he’d came, sat down on the edge of the bathtub and had a little cry. It was kind of more than a little cry. Really, if he was being honest with himself, it was a horrible kind of ugly cry, leaving him red faced and shaking, as his head ran back in on itself: forever going in the same circles and tearing away at him from the inside. It couldn’t go on like this. He knew that for sure.

He sat there for a good ten minutes, crying his eyes out to the point where he was just sure he’d ran out of tears completely. Once he’d stopped however, he didn’t feel any better, just empty. The worst kind of numb. A persistent, physical, numb kind of ache that crawled up inside of him and tugged at each and every one of his bones. It was the kind of numb that made him want to shove his hand around his cock again - just to feel something, but he knew by now that it would only make everything worse.

Matty let the numbing sensation spread through every inch of his body as he got to his feet. He turned to face his reflection in the mirror and tried to pinpoint just what it was that was wrong with him. There had to be something; he’d figured out so much by now. This all just hadn’t stemmed from nothing. That just didn’t make sense at all.

But facing his reflection was perhaps the worst thing to do, because suddenly in the cold air of the bathroom, he became perhaps overly aware of every inch of his own skin. He fixated on the way his shoulders slouched and sloped in slightly, the way that if he sucked in a breath, you could see the outlines of his ribcage through his chest, the way his hips were all too narrow and his legs all too skinny, his knees bony and too big for his legs, his hands tiny even on his short arms, and his skin flushed a horribly bright pink all over.

That wasn’t what he focused in on though. Suddenly, each imperfection meant nothing in comparison, as he stood and faced his reflection. He faced his body as it was and opened up his mind for just a moment. He stood there and stared at his skinny frame, at his angular torso, at his flat chest, at his dick, hanging almost limply between his legs. 

Looking at himself like that, he was just so obviously so male, so unavoidably masculine, as he stood there torn away from anything else he had to his name. He felt exposed, like it was almost uncomfortable to stare at himself like this, to see himself clearly and honestly, as a body, as bones and skin - free from demeanour and character, from clothes and expression, free from everything that helped the world make more sense to him. Free from any kind of comfort and familiarity he found in himself and his own sense of identity.

It made him sick. A horrible kind of sick that sank in through his skin and deep through his bones. Like he wasn’t human, just a set of broken pieces shoved hopelessly together. He was overwhelmed with a desire to feel real. To feel like he belonged, even in just his own skin. Just to feel like the reflection he met in the mirror could possibly be him. The  _ real _ him: the person lost inside of this mess.

He hadn’t thought an awful lot about his gender. Truthfully, he hadn’t known where to start and he’d just been so awfully terrified to ask. But there in that moment, Matty stared at his frame: naked and shuddering slightly, and with all the confidence in the world, knew for certain that he just couldn’t be a boy.

-

“I’m so fucked.” Matty’s words were barely more than a whisper as he paced back and forth through his bedroom. “Everything’s so fucked.” He repeated, tears welling in his eyes as he struggled to get even the slightest kind of proper grasp on the situation. He was just all out of ideas as to where he could go from here.

“Everything?” Gemma’s voice came from down the phone, finding that she had just as little of a grip on what was going on as Matty did himself. “What’s going on?”

“Everything.” He stressed, rubbing his eyes and wishing to push the whole world far away from him.

“What specifically though?” Gemma really did try her best, feeling the desperation in Matty’s voice, and hating that she just didn’t have the slightest clue as to how she might put it to rest. “What made you call me? There was  _ something _ , wasn’t there?”

“Yeah.” Matty swallowed hard, dragging his gaze down to the floor, to his feet, to the imprints his pacing footsteps had made in his carpeted bedroom floor. “I…  _ fuck _ , Gemma,  _ fuck _ … I…” He took a deep breath, doing all he could to get some kind of oxygen, some kind of clarity to his brain. “Look, I’m… I… I’m not a boy. I’m not a fucking boy. Fuck, fuck, fuck- I just…  _ fuck _ . I’m  _ not _ a boy. What the fuck do I do? What the fuck am I supposed to- how do… I just… fuck-... I’m just this  _ mess _ … I… I…” Matty struggled to breathe, descending into a series of messy sobs.

“Fuck, Matty, I-...” Gemma couldn’t help but hate the fact that she felt like she was just anything but qualified to offer him advice and support, but despite that, she was still very much his best friend, and this couldn’t change that.

“Yeah, fuck - exactly. That’s all I can fucking think- all I can fucking-  _ fuck _ .” Matty let out a groan, collapsing back onto his bed and just focusing on breathing for a few moments. “Fuck.” He repeated aloud; it had almost become somewhat of a mantra at this point.

“Look, Matty, look you know I love you no matter what, don’t you?” Gemma began, desperately hoping that her words might do even the slightest thing to calm Matty down. “Because I do, and you’re my best friend, whether you’re a guy, or a girl, or whatever the fuck else.”

“Thank you.” Matty let out a breathy kind of sigh, doing all he could to steady his breathing as he focused on Gemma’s words: on the concern and sympathy behind them. For a good ten seconds he dedicated his brain entirely to the fact that she’d love him still, regardless of whatever kind of mess had unfolded up inside of his head. He knew that was important.

Gemma listened down the line until Matty’s breathing began to steady, only then beginning to continue. “So what was it that happened? Because something happened, didn’t it? I mean… last weekend you were at ‘sometimes I don’t really feel like a boy’ and now… you’re sure that you’re not a boy at all.”

“Gem, look, I am  _ not _ sure of anything.” Matty let out an uncomfortable kind of choked sob, trying to brush it off as a spout of badly placed nervous laughter. “Fuck.” He let out a groan, shaking his head, as he felt himself physically filling with the deep kind of regret for everything, especially the person that he’d let himself become.

“What happened?” Gemma repeated, her voice softer this time around. There was a hint of something patronising in her voice, as it undeniably bore reminiscence of the way you might speak to a child, but oddly enough, Matty found that he really didn’t mind it at all. It was comforting somehow.

“I just…” Matty took a deep breath, doing all he could to compose himself before continuing. “I just  _ knew _ . I just looked in the mirror, I looked at myself properly, I looked at myself for a long time, like properly just stared at myself and took it all in… I just… I just knew. It was all wrong. It feels wrong. I feel wrong. Because I’m not masculine, I’m not- I’m not a boy, that’s all wrong, that’s all just fucking wrong- I just… I don’t know if I’m a girl though, fuck Gemma, I just don’t know, I just- I don’t know.”

“That’s okay, fuck, Matty, that’s so okay. You don’t have to know. I’m not asking anything of you. Look, do you… I don’t know, want me to call you something different or something like that?” Gemma’s voice was somewhat tentative: so very curious, but still so very careful, knowing Matty well enough to know that in this state, he was just so far beyond fragile.

“Fuck, I- fuck, I don’t know. I don’t know. Fuck… I don’t fucking know.” Matty bit his lip, shaking his head firmly as he struggled to his feet. “I don’t want to think about that. It feels all too formal, too set in stone- too  _ real _ . Fuck, I don’t want this to be real, like… fuck, all of this was fine when it was just this mess sort of vaguely at the back of my mind, but now… now I’m just  _ really not a boy _ . I can’t… avoid that. I can’t fucking fix it either. Like what the fuck am I even supposed to do, I just-”

“Matty, look…” Gemma lowered her voice, doing all she could to pull off soft and comforting. “You don’t have to do anything. Look, this isn’t supposed to be a problem, is it? Your gender doesn’t need  _ fixing _ , does it? Come on, think about it. There’s like nothing you can do about it, like, you can’t  _ make _ yourself be a boy if you’re not. You’ve just got to accept it, haven’t you?”

“No one else will.” Matty snapped, his mind coming to a very quick conclusion about everything. “I can’t just… people are going to look at me and see a boy, and I’m supposed to correct them, and then what am I supposed to say? Sorry I don’t have any fucking clue what or who I am, please just don’t mention gender in any way, shape, or form around me or I will literally cry? Like that’s not going to fucking _ work _ , is it?”

“Yes.” Gemma felt a little more confident in her advice this time around. “Say that. Say exactly that. And if they don’t take you seriously then they’re not worth your time, are they? You don’t want someone who won’t respect you in your life.”

“But, fuck, I’m fucking terrified of losing people. I can’t just… I fuck- fucking hell, Gem, I just wish none of this ever even existed, I wish. I fucking wish I was a boy, you know that? Right now I wish I was the most fucking manliest man in the entire world, because then I’d be normal. Then people would accept me, then I’d feel okay. Then everything wouldn’t be a mess. Then I could just be gay. And then I wouldn’t have to think about gender or sexuality at all. It’d be fucking simple that. I’d fucking love that, you know? I fucking would.”

Gemma’s new found confidence seemed to dissipate into nothing, as all of a sudden, she realised that she just had absolutely no idea of what it was that she should say.

“Like what the fuck am I supposed to do with my sexuality now? Like it’s not like I can… I just… no one’s going to fucking want me, are they? If I want to have a boyfriend or even just fuck a guy, maybe even just  _ kiss _ a guy. That’s not going to work, because gay guys want to kiss guys, and I’m not a fucking guy, and I don’t think I can let myself pretend, that’s not any way to fucking live is it? And then straight guys want to fuck girls and I’m not a girl. And yeah, bisexual guys want to fuck girls and boys, but separately, not some fucking mess between the two of them. Who the fuck wants me? No one’s going to accept that. No one’s going to want to accommodate it. And I can’t fucking deal with that.”

“Matty… you… you don’t imagine that you’re the only person in the entire world who feels like you do, do you?” Gemma’s voice was quiet, tentative, and cracking in places, but still, she was trying, so desperately hard, and that meant the world. “Because there are people like you, have you not thought about that? There are definitely people who will respect you, people who will love you, people who aren’t going to care about fitting you into one of two genders. There are people like that, of course there are.”

“Then where the fuck are they? Where in all hell is the answer to my fucking problems?”

“Matty, I don’t know. I think the idea is that you accept who you are and go out and find them for yourself. If you need to prove that someone loves you for who you are, then you need to do that, you need to find someone to tell you so. If you need to, then go out and make it happen. But you just need to accept that this is who you are, and that there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”

“Yeah… okay.” Matty took a deep breath: Gemma’s words suddenly beginning to settle and make sense in his mind.

“I love you and I accept you, alright? People do and people will. Don’t forget that.”

-

To his credit, Matty  _ did _ follow Gemma’s advice. Just perhaps not in the way she’d intended it to be followed. But then again, it was never as if she’d set out anything in the way of clear guidelines for him in the first place.

Come Saturday night, Matty had come up with what he’d deemed to be his master plan: a work of genius, in which he’d be sure to fix everything all at once. Or, if things didn’t go as planned, at least he could have the satisfaction of calling Gemma up again just to say ‘I told you so’. 

Matty looked a mess. But it was all okay because he’d gotten drunk before he’d even left the house. It had all been too easy come eleven, with his brother up in his bedroom, and his parents away in the living room, talking loudly over the TV, and just entirely too engaged in their own conversation.

He’d come to declare that Saturday as one of his worst days, but something he’d had to deal with nevertheless. Therefore, it really wasn’t his fault if his solutions were just far from orthodox, or even  _ successful _ , for that matter. But Matty did feel a hell of a lot better with himself with the best part of a bottle of wine down him. After all, he really did have to be at least tipsy to even think about going through with this.

Matty had come to perhaps even relish in the fact that he looked like a mess. He finally perhaps looked just as confusing and fucked up as he felt on the inside. It was all about self expression, wasn’t it? That was what it had to be, with him sneaking into his parents’ bedroom to steal his mum’s makeup, like he was four years old all over again. 

But instead, Matty stood there at eighteen and for the second time that day, faced his reflection in the mirror. 

He’d pulled his hair up into a bun, doing all he could to stray it towards the elegant side of messy - the kind of look girls actually sought after, and not just a consequence of general ineptitude when it came to everything. He’d done a better job at repainting his nails, as that was at least something he did vaguely frequently. 

When it came to make up, however, he was sure he’d committed some sort of cardinal sin with the brightest of red lipsticks slathered thickly across his lips, and dark, almost raccoon rings of eyeliner smudged out around his eyes. He’d combined that with the tight leather jacket and girls’ jeans he frequently wore, and really, he didn’t look  _ terrible _ . But he just didn’t look particularly fantastic either. He found some charm in that, however.

He couldn’t quite explain it, but Matty stood there at eighteen, and for the third time that day, faced his reflection in the mirror. And for the first time in far too long, he smiled.

Matty carried that same smile out of the back door as quietly as he could, making his way out onto the street without attracting any attention. From then on, it was a series of busy roads: illuminated with brightly coloured artificial lights that dragged him into the city, to the part of the world that really did feel alive.

He found himself buzzing off an unknown high, making his way through town with what he might have even called determination. And in the evening light, not for a moment did he think to worry, to stop with concern, to hide his face, to hide himself from every stranger on the street. Tonight he wanted them to have him. He wanted the world to really see who he was, with everything thrown out on the table. Matty wanted a reaction. He wanted to leave a mark: a lasting impression. He wanted to be remembered - to be more than another face amidst the sea of many. For suddenly, ‘average’ and ‘normal’ no longer meant a thing to him.

The way to the club was almost ingrained into his mind; it was a journey he’d taken perhaps far too many times before, a place he’d come to know well over the last year of his life. The very first time he’d ever set foot inside he’d come in search of answers, with a mess of confusion on his mind, and upon that Saturday night, he returned in much the same manner.

The club was tucked away on the end of a street, with a bright neon sign out front, producing an almost noxious kind of pink light that flooded the interior also. The whole place reeked of tacky: tacky trying to hard to be modern, stylish, maybe even beautiful. But Matty couldn’t look himself in the mirror and deny that he was very much the same. Yet despite its appearance, the club was his favourite. He always came back, after all.

It was however, worlds away from the series of clubs and bars that Gemma sometimes took him out to: places with bathrooms that didn’t perpetually smell like sick, and nice seating at the bar. Those were the clubs he went to for something else, though. Those were the places he went with friends, for a drink, to dance, to laugh, to maybe end up throwing up in the gutter outside of a Morrisons at two in the morning. 

However, Matty went to  _ this _ club when he wanted to get fucked.

He scanned the crowd as he walked in, quickly locking eyes with one boy from across the room. He was exceptionally pale with blonde hair and bright blue eyes, and sure, he was pretty, Matty just didn’t feel like he was really his type. Instead of pursuing him, he made his way straight to the bar, cutting through the room with a feigned kind of confidence that he’d put down to a fifty fifty split between the wine and the lipstick.

He couldn’t deny that the barman looked at him oddly as he took a seat and ordered a drink, but there was something up in his head that told him just not to care. Instead, he concerned himself with glancing across to a man, perhaps just a few years older than him, with thick, dark hair, who sat a little way away from him. Matty spent a good few minutes doing all he could to make eye contact: batting his lashes and pouting excessively, but the man didn’t seem the slightest bit interested.

Matty soon grew irritated, finishing his drink as he did all he could not to let a certain feeling sink in: the notion that he’d been right all along, that no one would want him like this. People came here because they liked guys, not whatever the fuck he could possibly be. He started to wonder if this had just been entirely the wrong place for it, but really, Matty didn’t have the slightest idea as to where else he should go. He began to consider making his way over to the dancefloor, to find the boy with blonde hair and blue eyes, who really wasn’t his type, but would do. Really, Matty had never had very high standards in the first place.

It was just as he was about to give up, however, that a guy slipped into the seat beside him. He’d immediately caught Matty’s attention: tall, and dark haired, with broad shoulders, and a hint of a smile across his face. Somehow, before Matty could even think of what to say to him, he had the bartender’s attention instead.

“Can I get a beer, mate?” He asked, his words coming out in a deep, thick tone that did horrible things to Matty’s mind. Just as Matty thought that he’d lost all hope of getting his attention, the man had turned directly to him with that very same smile. “And what about you, sweetheart?”

Matty grinned, blushing as his heart soared up into his chest in something that he might have even described as disbelief. “Shot of vodka.” He smirked, watching the barman momentarily: he fixated on the odd look in his eyes, like he had the whole world to say about this fucking weird mess that had turned up looking like some sort of emo hooker, but Matty really didn’t have a care in the world.

It was then as the guy turned to properly look at Matty, doing the best he could in the low light, the penny did finally drop. “Oh…  _ fuck _ .” He let out an exasperated kind of breathy sigh, his eyes growing wide like saucers, as slowly, Matty turned back to face him. “Fucking hell… Matty… wasn’t it?” He shook his head in disbelief, forcing a nervous laugh as he took his beer from the table, almost as if to hide himself behind it.

“Yeah…” Matty began, glancing around uncertainly. “Umm… who the fuck are you?” Part of him would have wished he could have been polite, seeing as this guy, for god knows what reason, seemed to actually be attracted to him, but he was running entirely on alcohol, on a bubbly, toxic kind of confidence, and just pure fucking dumb luck.

“Fucking hell.” He put his drink down, meeting Matty’s eyes for a moment, and really, Matty couldn’t deny that he did look familiar, but he struggled to place just why exactly. “You had a proper go at me, mate, thought you might have remembered that at the very least. Pretty sure you called me the most repulsive person you’ve ever met.”

“Oh…” Matty giggled, wondering if he could brush it off. “I do that a lot. I’m quite stubborn, quite stupid as well, trust me, I probably didn’t mean it.” He took a deep breath, downing the shot, and turning back to the guy with a grimace.

“Ryan.” He supplied, watching Matty oddly for a moment or two, waiting for it all to come back to him. “From Gemma’s house. You know, you walked in like last weekend and it was really awkward because we were well, a bit preoccupied, and then suddenly I’m the most repulsive person you’ve ever seen and she won’t talk to me anymore. That Ryan.”

Matty’s eyes grew wide, choking a little as it all came back to him. “Fucking-... fuck… wait… so… what… I…? You do realise this is a  _ gay _ club-”

“You do realise I wasn’t being homophobic at all?” Ryan rolled his eyes; he definitely hadn’t intended to sit down next to Matty, of all people, he’d just picked the prettiest boy at the bar, and it had happened to be him. “You do realise I’m bi, and you do realise I was looking at you like that, not because I’d never seen a ‘real life queer person before’, but because, you know, I thought you were so hot that there wasn’t going to be a single chance in hell that you’d be into dudes, let alone me.”

“ _ Oh _ …” Matty bit his lip, unable to deny that he’d fucked up there, and really, whatever Gemma’d had with this guy, and all for really no reason. At least, he had been a dickhead to start off with, but under the dim, pink lighting of the club, and with the shot of vodka to his system, Matty found that Ryan was suddenly nowhere near the dickhead he’d once been, and really, his nose just didn’t look anywhere near as ugly as it had done before.

“Yeah.” Ryan nodded, meeting him with a nervous kind of smile. “And I’d understand if you don’t want to talk me, because I mean, it’s a bit… weird, I guess, I fucked your best friend and then she told me she never wanted to speak to me again- yeah, I should probably-  _ go _ -”

Matty cut him off, latching onto his arm, with a pleading kind of desperate look set intently into his eyes. “No…  _ please _ , stay.” He batted his eyelashes up at him: trying all he had, and watching intently as Ryan eventually let out a sigh and sat down again.

“Alright, sweetheart.” He grinned, resting his chin into the palm of his hand, his arm rested against the bar. “So am I still the most repulsive person you’ve ever met, or what?”

Matty giggled, his cheeks turning red - a shade that, at the very least, had to match his lipstick. “ _ No _ … course not. I mean, look, I never hated you, I just thought you were being a dickhead, alright, and I was hungover and pissed off, and so tired, and so moody, come on, you had to see that, I looked a wreck.”

“You looked pretty.” Ryan told him, unable to stop his lips from forming a grin. “Even then. I think you always look pretty. You look gorgeous now, let me tell you that. Prettiest boy in this whole club.”

Matty couldn’t help but grimace at the word ‘boy’, finding that he could do nothing more than focus on that intently, disregarding the rest of the compliment entirely. He forced himself to smile, to nod, and look appreciative regardless.

“Gorgeous?” He echoed, his voice shaking a little. “What? Now I’ve turned up like this mess, all… fucking reject hooker make up look up here, and these, these aren’t even my best jeans.” He gestured down at his legs, pulling at the fabric a little. “They’re too loose. I’ve got such fucking horrible weedy little legs.” He grimaced.

“Gorgeous.” Ryan repeated, just as certain as it had been before. “You look so good in lipstick.”

“Fuck.” Matty blushed, properly this time, Ryan’s words seeming to sink right into his skin, because this meant everything, this meant the world. Because Matty really was drunk enough to let some random guy in a bar call him gorgeous and let all his problems wash away with it.

He held this as proof; all he needed to know that people would love him, people would accept him, and that boys like George, maybe just weren’t worth his time. He focused intensely on every positive, soaring high above entirely else, and completely disregarding the fact that this was  _ Ryan _ : Gemma’s Ryan, or had been Gemma’s Ryan. And although, they had never actually spoken about it, Matty was sure there was some unspoken rule about not fucking your best friend’s ex. Well, really, they’d never actually dated, so he’d really never actually been her boyfriend. He’d just fucked her. Somehow that seemed to sit so much better in Matty’s mind.

“What is it, sweetheart?” Ryan asked, moving a little closer to Matty. “You alright? Do you want another drink or something?”

“You know? You’re hot. You’re so  _ hot _ .” Matty tossed aside all common sense entirely, deciding that from this point on he was going all in. He even went as far as to whine a little as he glanced over Ryan, focusing on his body - that tall, broad frame, and perhaps not so much on that nose, that really didn’t quite fit on that face. But really, he was enough. In Matty’s eyes, under the neon lights, he was perfect. He was the world.

But at one point, just about every boy had been.

Ryan blushed, grinning as he got to his feet, stretching his hand out to Matty. “Do you wanna dance?”

“Fuck,  _ please _ .” Matty nodded, growing weak all over, as he let Ryan pull him to his feet, entwining their fingers as he let his strong hand, perhaps twice the size of his own, lead him across to the dancefloor. To the brighter lights, to the music that seemed to vibrate against the floor, and to catch eyes with that blonde haired boy, who looked across at him, disappointed - knowing he’d lost his chance.

Matty liked that. Being wanted. Eyes on him. Lustful eyes and sweaty bodies pressed tightly against one another. The simple things, the nights where he didn’t have to think. As in that moment, he felt high, high above everything else, floating off the floor, with enough confidence to take down the world.

And that was wonderful. 

It just shouldn’t have been: it was all wrong, it was all lies, all words spoken too softly, too much drink, and a strong disregard for all that could come of this. But Matty just couldn’t find an inch of space up in his head for a single inkling of the truth.

And still, under the neon lights, with a hand around his waist and another against his neck. That was fucking wonderful.

-

Matty had lost his mind under the lights, in the mess of the crowd, with Ryan’s body pressed close against his own, and the whole world seeming to run like blood through his veins. He found it again with his legs spread wide, under the dim glow of golden light, warmth all over him, and unknown shadows cast on unrecognisable walls.

He forced his eyes to focus, his mind connecting back to his body as he faded out of what he could only describe as a drunken haze: something within him beginning to sober up finally. He couldn’t help but hate the come down, the truth of it all, the cold, harsh touch of reality, the looming bittersweet sadness, and indeed the inevitability of it all.

A series of slow, hazy blinks brought him through to a state of proper consciousness: a full awareness of where he was and what he was doing. He sat there motionless for a minute more, doing all he could to make sense out of the shadows cast onto the walls, of an unfamiliar room, a place he didn’t know, yet despite that, this unexplainable warmth, a feeling that somehow, for some reason, he was loved.

Matty couldn’t deny that he needed that.

He didn’t quite get onto pondering the exact nature of his situation before the door opened, letting a harsh kind of white light into the room, and stood amidst the light was the familiar face that brought it all back.

“Fuck…” Matty grumbled, shuffling forward a little. “Ryan…”

“Are you alright…?” Ryan’s voice was slow, tentative, never taking his eyes away from Matty as he reached for the light switch on the wall. “What are you doing in the dark?”

Matty watched as the shadows vanished and the room seemed to glow a beautiful shade of gold. Despite the fact Matty was still yet to grasp the specifics of his situation, he felt an overwhelming sensation of comfort set deep within him: something like an innate, unexplainable notion of safety.

“I don’t know…” Matty’s voice was muffled, his face down towards the ground. “Ryan… I… don’t quite remember, really.” He admitted, feeling a little stupid more than anything. 

Ryan offered him a sympathetic kind of smile and closed the door behind him, setting down two mugs of tea onto the bedside table, before sitting beside Matty on the double bed in the centre of the room.

“Did you make me tea?” Matty’s eyes grew wide, fixating on the two mugs that Ryan had set down beside them. He nodded. “I’m  _ actually _ honoured.” Matty exclaimed, grinning a little as he glanced across at Ryan. “Wait… fuck… this is your place, isn’t it? I mean… yeah…” His eyes spun frantically around the room. “What happened at the club? I don’t even remember leaving, I’m-... what time is it?”

“Matty…” Ryan lowered his voice in an attempt to soothe him, placing a gentle hand on his back. “You okay?” His voice remained soft-spoken as he reached for his phone to check the time. “It’s like two in the morning. You got really drunk back there, like properly wasted, like you know the kind of drunk that it wasn’t safe to leave you on your own like, so I asked if I could take you home, but you insisted that I didn’t, so I took you to mine.”

“Oh…” Matty trailed off. There was a part of him that couldn’t help but wish that something more than that had happened along the way. He was desperate to be wanted, to feel loved, even in the worst way.

“I can take you home now if you want. You slept a bit of it off, I think.” He offered, really as if he didn’t mind either way. Matty couldn’t help but hate that. He knew that Ryan was only trying to take care of him, but Matty hadn’t gone out that night to be looked after.

“What? Do you  _ want _ me gone or something?” Matty had risen his voice before he could stop himself, turning to meet Ryan with an insistent kind of anger in his eyes.

“ _ No _ .” Ryan exclaimed, moving closer to Matty as if to show just that. “I just thought you might want to, I mean if you didn’t really remember me taking you here then I guess it was kind of against your will, but I really did think it was the best thing for you-”

“No, Ryan,  _ thank you _ .” Matty forced himself to think straight, doing all he could to remind himself that in that state of intoxication he would have likely ended up passed out in a spare trolley in the middle of a Sainsbury’s carpark. He couldn’t imagine that that would have been a particularly pleasant situation to deal with. This was certainly a better alternative.

“It’s alright.” Ryan told him, smiling a little as he reached for his cup of tea. “You can stay overnight as well, that’s fine too.”

“Yeah, thanks.” Matty let out a sigh, settling himself back down onto the mattress and spreading his limbs out across the bed.

They sat like that for a while. In a soft, very early morning silence, as Ryan sat there sipping his tea, and Matty lay down beside him, doing all he could to keep his worst kind of thoughts from seeping back into his head.

He couldn’t stop them in the end. He never really could. No sense of salvation was permanent, and with every night there would always be a morning to follow. He couldn’t help but hate that, just as much as he couldn’t help but hate himself.

He hated himself for wanting more, for using every single person in his life, for running in circles away from the whole world, from everything he should just let catch up to him, but he didn’t want to think about the person he was, and much less the person he could end up to be. Nothing scared him quite like that.

In the quiet, under the warm glow of the light, he lay there and thought of this night, and how it was yet to accomplish anything, how he lay there, suddenly unwanted, useless, broken, falling apart, with chipped nail polish and lipstick fading off his lips. He wanted to will himself back to the very beginning of the night, to the beginning of getting drunk, when everything just felt golden, and he could bask in a real kind of wonder that he might have just even been able to pass off as happiness.

“Matty, are you alright…?” Ryan glanced over to him, noticing the glazed over, lost look in Matty’s eyes, as if he’d just about drowned in himself, his mind falling to pieces all around him.

“Not really no.” Matty choked out, desperate not to cry, desperate not to cry in front of perhaps the one person who found him attractive, because god, he was such a fucking ugly crier. And more so, desperate not to cry as to not make it tangible, to make it real.

“Matty…” Ryan let out a gasp, setting his tea down, and properly turning his attention to Matty in the bed beside him. “What’s wrong, sweetheart? Fuck, don’t cry, please don’t cry.” He grasped Matty’s hand, pulling it away from where it had entangled itself in the sheets. “Come on, gorgeous, don’t cry, it’s going to ruin your makeup.”

Matty snorted a little, forcing himself to sit up, taking no more than a moment to sit properly on his own, before letting himself fall into Ryan’s side. “God, I’m such a fucking idiot.” He let out a sigh, rubbing his eyes, and grimacing momentarily at the black smudges left on his fingers. He decided, however, that by this point, he just didn’t care.

“You’re not an idiot, come on, Matty, I-”

“No, look at me, you take me home from a club, and what do I do? Fucking cry on you, Jesus Christ? Fucking hell, this is whole new levels of tragic, this.” He shook his head in disbelief, forcing himself to sit up properly again. Matty took a deep breath and did all he could to compose himself, brushing his hair out of his face and adjusting the bun he’d tied it up in.

“Like you’re the first drunk boy that’s cried on my shoulder.” Ryan rolled his eyes, laughing to brush off the notion.

The word ‘boy’, however, could only make it worse. “Fuck.” Matty choked out, every bad thought he’d ever had about his gender creeping in suddenly. “Fucking hell, I just- look… just… am I going to sound even more pathetic if I just straight up ask you to fuck me?”

Ryan’s eyes grew wide, very much in disbelief. He blinked slowly at Matty for a good few minutes, almost as if he was entirely certain that he just might disappear at any moment.

“That’s… look… I came out tonight because I wanted to get fucked, alright? I feel like shit, I look like shit, and everything’s such a mess. I want someone to want me. To want me as I fucking am. Is that just asking too much?” Matty trailed off, meeting Ryan’s gaze nervously, holding his whole world out in his hands, waiting for Ryan to crush it into pieces.

“Fuck, Matty- you… you want me to fuck you?” He couldn’t help but stutter a little, his words paced all too quick and just all too slow, somehow all at the same time. “Fuck… I thought… fuck… you shouldn’t want me, you know? The most repulsive person in the world, first boy to come up to you at the bar, your best friend’s shitty ex-boyfriend- this is all…  _ wrong _ .” Matty’s heart sank down to his knees. “But  _ god _ , Matty, all I’ve ever wanted since I first saw you is just to  _ fuck you _ .”

Matty didn’t wait a moment before finding his way into Ryan’s lap, pulling his arms around his back and pressing their lips together. “Then  _ fuck me _ .” He whispered, pulling away, meeting Ryan with a look of desperation.

“Gemma-” Ryan began, eyes widening.

“Fucking forget about Gemma, fucking forget about everything, forget about everything fucked up and wrong, everything hurting you, everything hurting me. I mean… we have to forget… how else can we  _ live _ ?” Matty let out a sigh, not giving Ryan time enough to answer before once again, he connected their lips.

Ryan abandoned words completely and spoke instead in his hands around Matty’s waist, and the brief few moments until he’d leaned forward and used his weight to press Matty down against the mattress.

Matty let himself be used, let his limbs turn to jelly, his body to nothingness, falling like dust into Ryan’s grip. He let him. Under the golden glow of light, at half past two in the morning, with too much drink still in his system. Matty let him.

He entrusted his own heart, bleeding and broken, hammering away inside his chest, to the moment. He entrusted it all to the warm touch of Ryan’s skin, to the curve of his back, to his broad shoulders, to the careful kind of look in his eyes, and to the dip in the mattress where they lay.

The world faded away and dissolved in shades of pink and gold, in long fingertips against pale skin, in hands lost in hair, in lips almost afraid to leave each other be, in eyelids softly fluttering closed, in pliant bodies and gentle moves, met with strong arms and quick motions. 

He tasted the gold on his tongue, the world painted up around him like a temple, with strong pillars and a warm summer breeze. Under his chest, he saw the world as he might have envisioned it to be - a storybook kind of perfection. They lay together in the dip of the bed, the whole world seeming to shake around them like a storm, the bed creaked and moved with the force of the strongest typhoon, and the muscles in his back rippled like the harshest of seas. 

He lay there feeling loved more than used, feeling alive, feeling free, seeing beauty in the dullest of things, Matty let the ocean split and the tide wash him up, pulling him away from the choppiest of seas, for the tide to wane back out around him. Breath left his lips for what felt like the longest amount of time, and he lay there, as Ryan pulled away and out of him, expecting to settle down amidst golden sands, but what had once been golden, shone only a brassy yellow at best. 

Matty lay there naked in what was essentially a stranger’s bed. He immediately covered himself in the blankets, doing all he could to hide away from the truth that lay beneath it all, his eyes sneaking off to watch Ryan stumble to his feet, looking no longer like any kind of God, no wonder of nature at all, just a tall man, with a nose far too big for his face, tying off a condom and throwing it into the bin.

They didn’t say a word as Ryan slipped into bed beside him. Matty was just thankful that they didn’t have to. It was late, it was awkward, and all he could do was look at the man lying in bed next to him and think of Gemma. Think of what he’d done, and really what it did all mean. There was no escaping that, not really, despite all the stupid thoughts he’d put a world of trust in.

He lay there awake in the darkness for far too long, watching dimmer shadows dance on the wall, glancing across at the two discarded cups of tea on the side, out there with everything he’d once been. Matty couldn’t quite explain it, but he’d lost something tonight. Perhaps a part of himself in these sheets, under Ryan’s body, in every pet name he could give him. It was a part of himself that, try as he might, he just couldn’t quite seem to get back.

And then as two am became three, his eyelids grew heavy, and Matty tried desperately to fixate on anything besides the mess he’d made out of everything.

-

As Monday morning came around, Matty came to realise that he hadn’t even left his bed since he’d gotten home on Sunday. Come that Sunday morning, he’d been the first to wake up, before even the sun had begun to rise in the sky. Admittedly, he had considered his options, about staying a little while longer, or at the very least, waking Ryan up to say goodbye. However, he did neither of those things, and had instead left without a word, not even a note left on the bedside table, not even the slightest sign that he’d been there in the first place.

Matty had stumbled into the streets that morning, headache pounding throughout his body, and a night full of regret running through his veins. All his hopes and dreams had deflated away inside him like a balloon, and at six twenty that morning, he found himself waiting at a bus stop in the cold, taking his hair down, and wiping his makeup off onto a tissue.

He’d gotten home no longer than fifteen minutes later, making his way inside as quietly as he could, taking advantage of the Sunday morning, of the still and calm of the house, and indeed the still of the world. Doing his best to brush away his worst thoughts, he wandered into the kitchen and made himself a sandwich as quickly and quietly as he could. He took the sandwich, a glass of water, and some paracetamol up to his bedroom, locked the door, and stayed there for the rest of the day.

Matty had never exactly  _ intended _ to dedicate a whole day to wallowing in his own self pity, but that was just the way things had ended up. He’d sat curled up on the edge of his bed, letting all his worries and regrets run in rampant circles around his mind. He’d cut himself off completely, just letting his phone run out of charge from the night before, and ignoring whoever tried to knock on his bedroom door.

Part of him wished that Monday could drag on in much the same fashion, but reality had done quite the job of ensuring that he didn’t get away with that. He did, however, wonder, perhaps only briefly, if that had been for the better.

He awoke to his mum banging on his bedroom door, much more persistently than she had done the day before. Matty lay in bed and just listened for a while, letting the world get on and life happen around him, but soon enough it became rather evident that she just wasn’t going to give up.

“You can’t hide away in there forever, Matty. Look- you’ve got work in… forty minutes- you’re going to need to get up and have a shower, and get dressed, and eat some breakfast, you know, pretty sharpish?” She raised her voice to a tone that Matty found to be inescapable, even from behind a locked door.

The concept of work, of going out that day and doing something with his life, of acting like a person, like someone who hadn’t just fucked everything up. He’d have to go and smile and serve coffee to strangers all day, and god forbid that George might make some sort of reappearance at all, because Matty couldn’t even imagine anything that might make things worse for him.

He just didn’t want anything to do with his own life anymore. At least not the life he’d already made for himself: the mould carved out for him to slot comfortably into. The thing was that he just didn’t fit into anymore, not in the slightest. It hurt him all over, and this was a breaking point of some sort, as he knew deep down in his heart, that he just couldn’t do this anymore.

He couldn’t deal with people, with life, with the mess he’d made, with the person he’d become, and just what everyone would think.

“Matty…” His mum started again, her tone a little softer this time around. “Are you  _ alright _ in there?” He gave no response, unsure of what he could even say to that, if he’d wanted to say anything in the first place, that is. “Look, Matty, please, just tell me you’re alright, even if you’re not going to come out or speak to me just let me know you’re in there? I’m worried about you, okay?”

Matty took a deep brief and got to his feet, purposefully avoiding catching his own reflection in the mirror on the wall, as he wrapped his duvet around himself rather like a cocoon, and stumbled through his bedroom to the door. He stood there and just breathed for a moment, doing all he could to put his mind at ease before he unlocked the door and pushed it open.

“Matty…” His mother’s eyes grew wide as they made contact with his own through the crack in the door. “What’s going on? Please, talk to me.”

“I’m ill.” Matty shrugged it off, like there’d been no real cause for concern with him at all. “I can’t go to work today.”

“Alright…” Denise couldn’t help but seem rather dubious, knowing in her gut that there was just more to this situation. There was, however, no denying that Matty certainly looked somewhat under the weather. “Have you called your manager?”

“I’m about to.” Matty mumbled, turning away from the door and searching his room for his phone.

Denise took the opportunity to push the door open,, stepping inside and pulling her gaze through her surroundings. Nothing seemed particularly amiss, but there seemed to be a certain quality about the room, or just to Matty himself: a weird kind of broken, not completely torn to pieces, but crumbling all over. She watched for a moment, unable to settle or convince herself otherwise than the fact that the look in his eyes was just slow and disorientated, as if there was someone else trapped up in Matty’s head in his place.

“Found it.” Matty proclaimed, pulling his phone up from behind a cushion and plugging it in. “Fuck, it’s out of charge as well- I-”

“Do you want me to call him for you?” Denise let out a sigh. She had tried not to baby Matty as much as she would have liked to, considering that he technically was an adult now. There was, however, no denying that there were situations in which he just needed it.

“ _ Yeah _ .” Matty let out a sigh, lying back down onto his bed and pulling the duvet up over his face.

“Do you want me to bring you up anything? Something for breakfast, some medication-”

“Just whatever… I don’t mind… I just… want to sleep it off.” Matty insisted, listening to his mother’s footsteps, making their way out of his bedroom, into the landing, and down the stairs. 

Just for a moment, he allowed his mind to wander, to wish that he really was genuinely ill, and that all that was plaguing him was something he could just sleep off. As truthfully, that really wasn’t the case.

-

Matty spent most of the day in bed feeling sorry for himself. He lay there motionlessly, letting his brain tie itself into knots and wishing for his heart to burn a hole right through his chest. He was only vaguely aware of the stream of notifications making their way to his phone, setting it off with an occasional buzzing. He’d glanced over briefly, only for long enough to see that in their majority, they were texts from Gemma.

As much as she was his best friend, and someone he always felt comfortable talking to, he wanted nothing more than for her just to leave him alone that day. Perhaps for a while longer than that. Perhaps just so he never had to face up to what he’d done, to tell her about Ryan, to tell her about everything.

Matty wasn’t stupid enough to assume that it all wouldn’t come out soon enough, when he was either high or drunk, his brain having departed from his body completely. Or when the guilt had all gotten too much and he reckoned his heart might just rot away inside his chest. He just didn’t want that day to be today, he wanted to waste away for a little while longer.

He managed to drift off again in the end, waking for the second time that day to the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs, echoing throughout the house, and seeping in through his open bedroom door. Matty sat up, disoriented and confused, having been sure that it wasn’t late enough for even Louis to get home from school yet. Sure enough, as he glanced to his phone for the time, it was no later than one that afternoon.

He didn’t, however, have much of a chance to panic about the source of the footsteps before his bedroom door was pushed open further and Gemma made her way into his room, smiling at him plainly, like this was all normal.

“Um…  _ what _ ?” Matty blinked hard, focusing his gaze up on Gemma. “Why are you here? Uh… who let you in?”

“No one.” She finished sharply. “You haven’t answered anyone’s texts since Saturday.”

“You  _ broke into my house _ because I didn’t text you back?” Matty’s mouth flew upon, his eyes wide with disbelief.

“I was worried about you. Everyone was.” She told him rather simply, taking off her coat and placing it on the desk chair, before sitting herself down on the end of Matty’s bed.

“You  _ broke _ into my  _ house _ .” Matty reiterated, his voice a little louder this time. He was however, answered back, not by Gemma, but by the voice at the back of his head, reminding him that he had in fact slept with Ryan.

“I went to the coffeeshop first. Asked your manager where you were - he was a proper cow to me and all, but turns out you’re home ‘sick’. So, I’m obviously even more worried about you at this point, because like how sick do you have to be to not even text anyone moaning about it? Or at least like, put it on your Snapchat story, or something.”

Matty snorted, rolling his eyes. He concluded that really, it maybe wasn’t in his right to be angry at her on the basis of this, especially considering what he’d done, and the bubbling pit of guilt rising from the bottom of his stomach, up and throughout his chest.

“How did you break in?” He asked, for curiosity's sake more than anything else.

“Kitchen window’s open.” She explained, as if it was nothing at all, like breaking into people’s houses for menial reasons was something she did just on the daily. With Gemma, you couldn’t really know for sure. “I closed it after myself, don’t worry.”

“How kind of you.” Matty let out a sigh, holding his head in his hands and doing his best to compose himself.

“I think none of your neighbours saw me, but would be good to mention this to your mum in case they come around and make her report it as a crime or like-” Gemma stopped herself, properly focusing on Matty, and then, finally concluding that really, he just wasn’t sick at all.

“Matty…” She reached out tentatively, brushing her fingers against his shoulder. “What is it? What’s happened? Come on,  _ tell me _ . Look, if you’ve learned anything recently, it’s that these things are going to destroy you if you keep them locked up inside you.”

“Everything’s fucked, Gem.” He let out a sigh, not daring to meet her gaze. Instead, he focused entirely on the floor, his teeth sinking down into his bottom lip to the point that it began to bleed.

“How is it?” She asked, moving closer to Matty and pulling him into a hug. “What happened this weekend? Because something did, didn’t it?”

Matty lay still against her chest, tears welling in his eyes, the world spinning in circles around his head. “Nothing.” He lied. He couldn’t tell her. Not now. Not fucking now. 

Not with her arms around him like this, not with the obvious care and respect she had for him, not when she loved him like this: her best friend. He couldn’t fuck that all up for himself, not just yet. She deserved better, fuck, she deserved so much better, but Matty didn’t even have it within himself to tell her so.

“Then what is it then?” She continued, her voice soft and laced with the kind of caring that Matty found himself to be in no way worthy of.

“Just everything. I keep thinking about things. It’s just all too much really. I’m just pathetic, I can’t cope with myself. Everything’s so fucking fucked, and honestly, I just… I just want to be happy. I want things to go right for once.” Matty let out a sigh, tears spilling out down scarlet cheeks. “I’m just not sure if I deserve that.”

“God, Matty,  _ of course,  _ of course you do.” Gemma pulled away slightly, moving to meet his gaze. “Fuck- don’t cry… fuck… Matty,  _ please _ , don’t cry.” She stumbled to her feet, reaching around in her coat pocket for a packet of tissues.

Matty felt like all there was left inside him had curled up and died. There was no denying that Gemma cared about him beyond belief, that his happiness meant the world to her, and that all he’d done was gone and fucked that up as well.

“You do.” She told him: certain of it. He took the tissues from her hand and dried his eyes, doing so only to hide his face behind them for a little while. “You deserve that. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be loved. You deserve for things to go right, and they will. Just trust me on that.”

“But what if they don’t?” Matty choked out, rubbing his eyes and pulling the tissues away.

“They will.” Gemma insisted, pulling Matty back into a hug before he could stop her. “And trust me, Matty, I’ll make sure of that. You deserve it. I know you do.”

Matty lay motionless, as if he was frozen over like a lake, like everything had gone cold inside of him, like everything lay dead and broken, shards of ice and the most fearsome winter.

It was in that very moment, as Gemma held him tightly in her arms, that he didn’t think he’d  _ ever _ hated himself more.

-


	3. im honestly so sorry that these chapters are so long but i just cant help myself

“This is a bad idea.”

Matty was sat on the windowsill, watching the rain hit the world outside in what almost seemed to resemble a spiteful horde. The window was pushed open slightly as he sat there smoking: doing all he could to keep himself together.

It hadn’t been a good few days, but Matty at least had to say that things hadn’t been as bad as he’d assumed that they might be. By that, he meant that nothing had physically fallen to pieces… yet.

“ _ Why _ ?” Gemma asked, eyes wide and inquisitive. She watched Matty from where she sat on the living room floor: perched on a cushion next to the coffee table. “What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s not even  _ bad _ , it’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard.” Matty continued, his tone sharp and evidently rather unwilling to compromise. He didn’t even spare the three girls so much of a look across Amber’s living room that evening.

It wasn’t that he was the epitome of hatred and loathing and everything wrong with the world, it was just a Wednesday evening: far too cold and far too late. He’d had a bad few days, especially the two he’d actually spent at work - still with no sign of George, which was something Matty had only grown to hate ever actually admitting to bothering him.

Truthfully, he didn’t want to be there, sat around being social, sat in someone else’s house: so forcefully connected to the rest of the world, but he just didn’t much fancy the walk home in the current circumstances. Then there was the fact that Amber had even gone as far as to pick him up from work to ensure that he actually came over; it was all part of Gemma’s desperate scheme to make him realise his ‘worth’, or whatever she’d called it. But from Matty’s perspective, with all that he knew, it was just fucking depressing - nowhere near worth anyone’s time at all.

Matty had gathered that Gemma wasn’t content with just leaving him be, just leaving everything to fester, to let nature take its course, to let things happen naturally - the way they should. Since Monday afternoon she’d proposed at least a hundred ideas to help Matty feel better about himself. And each one was just another knife through his chest; it all had to come out soon enough - he wasn’t sure he could keep it up any longer.

He began to wonder if he was even just making it worse for himself. He even went as far as to imagine that the fallout they’d endure would be less painful than this: this knowing, this guilt, and every care she had for him. Every care Amber and Marika had too. He reckoned they’d take her side when it came down to it, and really they should, because sympathy was so far beyond something he deserved.

Gemma really did believe she knew the world about him - what kind of person he was, and what kind of happiness he deserved, but really, she’d never been more wrong.

“Matty?” He found himself quickly brought back to reality, to the room, to the expectant faces of the three girls around him, and suddenly Marika - who’d gotten off the sofa, and walked across the room to sit by him at the opposite end of the windowsill.

“What…?” His voice was hesitant, scared almost. Really, that was the last thing he wanted it to be, but his head hurt so much, and his heart hurt more still. He was just so fucking tired of this all: of everything it had come down to, and he just wanted to go home. Maybe even to lock himself up in his room again, and see where it might bring him this time around.

“Why? Why is it such a bad idea?” Marika asked, her tone a lot softer than both Gemma’s and Amber’s had been. Matty dared to glance across the room, to where the other two girls sat close to one another, entirely absorbed in their own conversation, in their own plans, in their own ideas about everything.

He bit his lip and turned back to Marika. “Several reasons. For a start, you shouldn’t put this much care and effort in for me, of all people. Especially when I don’t even want you to. Yeah, secondly, you shouldn’t do it because I don’t want you to. Third, it’s going to be a mess, like I mean… parties always are. I don’t want you to throw me a party. It’s not going to make me happy. That’s not how things work, really. Don’t you know that? Like what use is a fucking party-... like… it’s just going to be another Friday night to get pissed, and then I’ll wake up with even more to regret, because the last time I got drunk I really fucked up, you know?”

Marika stopped for a moment, watching Matty tentatively. “What do you mean? What happened last time? Do you mean that time you told us about your gender…?” Her voice was soft - the kind of gentle you were inclined to trust, and Matty was doing all he could not to give in.

Matty shrugged. “No, not that. I guess… maybe that was a good decision in the end. I’m not sure, but whatever… look, it was nothing significant. You know, you just get wasted and it’s not a nice experience, I’m not good drunk. I’m not even good normally. I’m a  _ terrible _ person, and I can’t see what kind of fucking appeal you could possibly see in all of this.”

Marika let out a sigh, turning back to watch Amber and Gemma, who were both very much engaged in their own conversation: Gemma talking quickly with an excess of gestures and laughter, as Amber set her mind to texting someone, her fingers seeming to move frantically across her phone screen.

Marika leaned closer to Matty and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Look, alright… I’m really not supposed to tell you this, like this is supposed to be a really big secret, but Gemma’s whole idea for this, and the reason she’s inviting so many people, is because she wants to invite George. She wants to give you two another chance. And look, I think that’s a decent opportunity, don’t you?”

Matty groaned, his whole body seeming to freeze on the spot. Much to his surprise, however, instead of sinking right to the bottom of his chest, his heart began to soar, beating at double the speed. He found himself filled with an awful kind of hope, met with a feeling he just couldn’t explain. As really, if he was being entirely honest with himself, all he wanted in the world was George. To have a proper chance with him, for him to accept him as he was, for him to love him. Matty wanted every single stupid thing. Matty wanted the world. And just everything in it that he could never have.

He knew in that moment, very much for certain, that ignoring it all just couldn’t make it go away, but still, there wasn’t a chance in hell that he actually had the guts to face him, to so much as look at George again, to make sense of all that had been and all that could be.

“That’s such a bad idea.” He told her, shaking his head. “I just need to… I don’t know… I don’t even know why I can’t get over him… he’s just… so… there’s nothing  _ special _ about him… he’s just… I don’t know. He has no right to be on my fucking mind anymore, I just-”

“You don’t have to even look at him, alright. It can just be a party. You can avoid him all night. You can sit and get pissed with us, and maybe you could go and snog someone else entirely. But… you need to see him again, don’t you? Even just for a minute, you need to settle everything. Maybe even talk to him.” Marika continued, doing all she could to warm Matty up to the idea.

“Such a bad idea.” He repeated, shaking his head rather adamantly.

“Alright. If you think so, but look… Gemma’s put so much work into this for you, turn up, alright? Get as drunk as you want to, do whatever you want, just try to have a good time. Who knows? You might in the end.” Marika got to her feet, noticing the way Amber’s gaze had begun to linger on her from across the room.

“Unlikely.” Matty shrugged it off. “But yeah, whatever. I guess. I mean… it’s something to do on a Friday night, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Marika nodded, smiling. “It’s that. It’s whatever you want it to be, after all.”

“Yeah…” Matty let out a sigh, dragging his gaze back to the rain, to the heavy ache in his chest, to the truth about this all. 

He didn’t even know how he ought to feel about the possibility of seeing George again, he didn’t even know if he could properly formulate emotions at all. It was almost as if it hadn’t properly sunk in yet. Or as if the real George had all just faded from his mind completely, and the George that Matty had become so fixated on was just the one he’d constructed for himself.

Either way, however, there was really only one way to find out. And as Matty knew from experience, a sufficient number of glasses of wine could just about talk him into anything.

-

Matty didn’t get home until nine that evening, having wanted to avoid getting soaked on the way there. Part of him expected at least one of his parents to be waiting for him at the front door the very moment he got in, demanding his entire life story and a great description of where he’d been, but that didn’t happen. Matty had to admit that he just wasn’t entirely accustomed to being eighteen yet, to being an adult, to having the kind of responsibility where he was left to mostly take care of himself.

He stood waiting in the hallway for a good minute, as if he expected that eventually someone would  _ have _ to come out and ask him where he’d been, ask him of the hours he’d wasted away. But nothing came of it. The house remained still, silence broken only by the sound of the TV on in the living room.

Eventually, Matty just made his way upstairs, ready to hide himself away in his room and think about what could possibly come of Friday night. He even dared to wonder as to just what position he might be in a week’s time, because truly, that was such a horrible thought to think.

As he made it into the landing he couldn’t help but notice Louis’ bedroom door - left slightly ajar, leaving the vague muffled sound of music to seep out into the hallway. Matty stood there for a moment, watching the door, daring to even approach. He couldn’t deny that there just seemed to be something odd about it all; something that just didn’t sit quite right in his mind.

“Matty?” Louis’ voice eventually called out, the muffled music coming to a very sudden stop, almost drowning the upstairs in a horrible kind of silence that chilled Matty right to the bone.

“Yeah…?” Matty called out after him, taking a tentative step towards his brother’s bedroom door.

“Can I ask you about something?” Louis’ voice grew softer, barely audible through the door. It hit something inside of Matty, a sort of brotherly instinct, and he didn’t even spare a single thought before he pushed the door open and made his way inside.

“Course. Yeah.” He told him, voice as soft as he could make it, turning to see Louis sat on his bed.

“Close the door.” Louis urged him, stretching his legs out across the bed as he fidgeted slightly. He was very obviously nervous; Matty couldn’t deny that, but he thought best not to comment upon it until he had indeed shut the door behind him.

“What is it?” Matty asked, standing awkwardly for a moment, before taking a seat on the end of Louis’ bed. “What’s going on?” He turned to face his brother, finding his own issues seemed to dissipate slightly in favour of the current matter at hand. Really, Matty wasn’t a bad brother at all - far from it.

Louis let out a sigh, leaning forward a little as he faced Matty. “What’s going on with you? I’m worried about you. There’s obviously something, but I-... I don’t know. I’ve tried to figure it out, but I don’t know… it’s bothering me.”

Matty looked at Louis oddly, as if he was trying so very desperately to keep his whole world locked up inside of him. As really, his thirteen year old brother was perhaps the last person he would have thought to be onto him. Yet, there was no denying that Louis was certainly more intuitive than Matty had given him credit for. 

“There is, isn’t there?” Louis continued, watching the look in Matty’s eyes. “And you won’t talk to mum or dad about it, I know that. They were worried about you, you know… last weekend, when you locked yourself up in your room. I did my best to talk them out of it, you know? I figured if you weren’t telling them why, it was for a reason. I just started thinking about it all though myself, and there’s been something up for a while, not just this last weekend.”

“Yeah…” Matty let out a sigh, finding that perhaps in that moment he owed his brother more than he could ever express. “Look, please don’t worry about me, though. I am fine, I just… there’s some weird stuff going on in my head right now.”

“What kind of weird?” Louis asked: making it clear that he was perhaps just as stubborn as Matty was himself.

And just for a moment, Matty did let himself imagine just what might come of their little conversation if he told the truth. Not even the whole truth, but if he just looked his brother in the eyes and told him that he was into men, or that last weekend he’d gone out and fucked his best friend’s ex. He just wondered if those were the kind of things he could possibly even tell his little brother.

“Look… I don’t want to go into detail, but I’ve been a bad friend and I’m feeling unbelievably guilty about that. And then there’s this personal stuff… it’s kind of like really complicated… but it sort of makes me question my whole identity, and it’s just weird. It’s a lot. Yeah… it’s a lot.”

He let out a sigh, daring to chance meeting Louis’ gaze. As much as his brother did want to know the whole truth of it all. He met him with an understanding kind of look in his eyes, as if he knew that it was just the best he was going to get out of him, and that it would just have to do.

“You can talk to me though, whenever you want, alright?” Louis continued, watching as Matty got to his feet. “Just don’t… I don’t know… try and get better, try and fix whatever’s going on, because I feel like you’re just brooding, like you don’t want to fix it all, maybe just to have something to mope around about, I don’t know, but please try.”

Matty stood there, entirely astounded, looking down at his brother with wide, unblinking eyes. 

“I’m sorry, was that rude, I-” Louis began, his words coming out all too fast and all too sharp.

“No.” Matty let out a sigh. “You’re exactly right.”

-

It was Louis that had really inspired him to go in the end; what his brother had said to him that Wednesday night, with the kind of grasp on the situation that Matty had never imagined that he could have had. That had somehow meant the world.

Matty made his way down to Gemma’s at five that Friday night, almost excited, almost eager. He found that a part of him had recognised that whatever happened that night, this was how things changed, and this awkward, drawn out stage of nothingness just had to come to some sort of end. Something had to come of the night, whatever it could be, and Matty found no better option than just to embrace that.

There was no denying that even Gemma was a little surprised to see him, perhaps even at all, or even just so early, with such an optimistic look about him. Matty could help agree that all in all, it was rather out of character for him, especially considering the fact that he was actually sober for once, but instead of repressing everything, he’d come to accept the great part of him that was just so stupidly desperate to see George again.

“You look happy.” Gemma eyed him warily as she followed him up to her room. She hadn’t expected him, Marika, or Amber around until at least a good half an hour later, giving them still a couple of hours to set up for the party. Not that she’d ever imagined they’d actually spend that time any more productively than making a Spotify playlist and popping down to the corner shop to buy copious amounts of alcohol.

“What, do you want me to walk around looking incredibly depressed now?” Matty raised his eyebrows, looking back at her with all the confidence in the world. He might even tell her. About Ryan. About last weekend. The truth of it all. He was buzzing enough to dare to try it.

“No, I’m just…” She shook her head, trailing off as she followed Matty into her room, closing the door behind her. “Bit confused. That’s all.” She admitted, watching as Matty sat himself down on the end of her bed. “Are you  _ sure _ you’re not drunk?”

“Yeah, I’m  _ honestly  _ sober.” Matty stretched out across her bed. “You’d be able to tell if I was drunk. I mean, I’ve got the worst ideas in the world when I’m drunk, I’ve not done one stupid thing all day. Well maybe not even stupid, sometimes just brave. It’s weird, though, I feel brave now. Maybe not brave, maybe just  _ empowered _ , because I didn’t feel brave that night, I just felt empowered, like there was hope, or something. I feel like that now. I think I should be scared. I think I should be terrified. Maybe even shitting myself, but I’m not. I think you’re right, I think this is how it’s supposed to go.”

“Matty, mate, no offence, but…” Gemma shook her head, sitting down beside him and patting him tentatively on the arm. “What the fuck are you on about?”

“George.” He admitted, not a degree of hesitance in his voice. Gemma raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, don’t kill her but Marika told me. Please don’t kill her, alright? Look, I mean… I was pretty pissed off then, but I’m fine now, I’m like, maybe even thankful… I just… I feel like I need to acknowledge him again, properly, and then this mess is going to go away.”

“Fuck’s sake.” Gemma let out a sigh, but quickly came to conclude that really, she just wasn’t even upset. “Fuck, whatever. It worked, didn’t it? You’re alright now, aren’t you? You seem the most alright you’ve been in weeks.”

“Yeah…” Matty trailed off. “I guess I’m just too focused on George to think about anything else. My gender and shit… I guess that’s kind of nice.” He let out a sigh. “And now, of course, I’ve started to think about it again, haven’t I?”

“What are you thinking about?” Gemma asked,  watching him carefully. “With your gender? Like what is it exactly that’s going through your head.”

“I keep thinking about last weekend. How I thought I was brave but I just wasn’t brave at all. I was just drunk. Funny that I feel the same way now. And I’m completely sober. Maybe there’s some kind of hope in that. I don’t know-”

“What do you mean? What happened last weekend?” She continued, doing her best to infer all she could from the very little he’d given her to go on.

“Fuck, it’s best not to go there.” He let out a sigh, sitting up and moving to lean against the wall. “But… I… you know how I called you crying last weekend because I was having some sort of gender meltdown?”

“Yeah.” She nodded, finding that it had been awfully hard to forget in actual fact.

“Well… I went out after that. That night. You know, to prove something to myself, and I… I got drunk, I got drunk enough to sneak out the house with my mum’s makeup on, you know? It was tragic, but I really had tried. I was sort of going out with that tragically wasted kind of pretty. The kind of girl you might meet outside a Lidl at four in the morning, asking you for some fags. I didn’t end up at Lidl at four in the morning though, I went to this club… and I…” Matty’s voice grew heavier, part of him desperately wanting just to get it over with, to tell her about Ryan, to live with that, but he just couldn’t. “I met this guy. And he took me back to his place and he fucked me. And at the time, all night I’d thought it was this beautiful meaningful thing, like that it would mean the world, but then I don’t know… suddenly it was two in the morning and I was just lying there in some guy’s bed, and nothing felt magical anymore. I just felt sick really. I guess I just finally realised that sex isn’t going to fix everything.”

“Matty…” Gemma trailed off, her eyes widening as she came to the rather uncomfortable conclusion that she just didn’t have the slightest clue what to say.

“Yeah… and then I was trying to deal with that for the past few days.” He let out a sigh, already coming to regret that he’d dared to speak it aloud. To make it real, to live it over again. “I just have to try and fix things, though. I think maybe talking to George is the best shot I’ve got. Maybe even just to make my fucking head realise that he’s just a guy. That he’s nothing special, nothing to waste my life over. I think I’d even welcome that.”

Gemma didn’t say anything at all. Instead she just leaned forward and pulled Matty into a hug: holding him there, tight against her chest for what felt like forever. Really, Matty wished he could have felt safe there, comforted, calm, finally, but still, he was cutting himself into pieces as he locked the last part of the truth inside of him again.

“Fuck… Matty… I just…” Gemma pulled away, rubbing her eyes and meeting her best friend’s gaze. “I’m proud of you. You know that, right? I think… I think this is the start of things getting better again. You always needed to realise that fucking every boy you saw just wasn’t the answer. And I’m proud of you, for going out there in makeup, for being true to yourself, because really, that is brave.”

Matty even went as far as to laugh, shaking his head. “No, it was just stupid. All of it. I’d never do it again. Any of it. I just… I don’t know… I’ve been trying not to think about it really.”

“That’s why it was brave. The makeup thing, really.” She told him, her voice softer than before. “Because you’re scared this time around. I don’t think you should be. I think if you feel better about yourself when you present more femininely, then you should do that.”

Matty groaned, rubbing his eyes. He was well aware of the fact that really, Gemma was only trying to help him, but still, bringing his gender to the fore front of his mind like this was probably the last thing he’d needed.

“I did… I did feel better about myself…” Matty admitted, more just to the wall than Gemma herself, his tone barely more than a whisper. “I just don’t think I could do it sober. And I don’t want to get that drunk again. Not for a while now, because I don’t want to fuck up again, I don’t want to do any more stupid things. I just want to make sense of everything. And anyway, I looked terrible. I’m telling you that now.”

“I could do your makeup, you know? If you want.” She offered, moving closer to him still. “Whenever you want. You’d look good, I promise. I think it’d make you feel good as well.”

“Yeah… maybe…” He let out a sigh, shaking his head. “Just not… I don’t want to… not now… it’s already too much. Not for the party and everything. I wouldn’t want anyone else to see me like that, not now. You’re right, I’m scared. No, I guess I’m terrified.”

Gemma nodded, pausing for a moment as she considered their situation. “We’ve got time, you know? Until everyone else gets here. And you really do look like you need to feel better about yourself.”

Only five minutes later, Matty found himself sat on the bedroom floor, his hair tied back and away from his face, a large glass of water by his feet. He’d downed it as if it was a shot, almost as if to trick himself that it was. 

Truthfully, he was curious. He wanted to see what Gemma could do. He wanted to see how she could make him look. He even went as far as to imagine that he might look pretty. Properly. And not just in a weird kind of degenerate way. He put all his trust into that dream and fixed his gaze to the wall, only half listening to the few offhand comments Gemma made as she rooted around through her makeup bag.

There was, of course, the voice at the back of his mind telling him that this was all wrong, that this was all fucked, that this was all going to make it worse, but Matty had come to accept that voice as somewhat of a constant: prevalent amidst anything he might do, and only hoped that all of this might be able to alleviate it somehow. Or at the very least, just the mess and the self-doubt, the knot that had tied itself deep down inside of his chest, or the irregular beating of his heart.

“You’re nervous, aren’t you?” Gemma met Matty with a knowing look as she sat down in front of him. She held his gaze for a good few moments, wondering if there was something more she could say before she continued to root around in her makeup bag.

“Yeah.” Matty admitted, watching her search through the bag. “Can you like… talk me through what you’re doing… it’s stupid but I think it’d calm me down a little.”

“Course.” She looked up, meeting him with a smile, before pulling a few products out of the bottom of her bag. “Right so, I think you’re paler than me, so I’m a bit worried that this foundation is going to look a bit dodgy, but I think it’ll be fine. I can always blend it out a little.”

“Foundation’s the face one isn’t it?” Matty asked, watching as she opened up a little tube.

Gemma raised her eyebrows. “The face one? Matty, it’s all going on your face, isn’t it?”

He let out a sigh, rolling his eyes. “You know what I mean. The like… skin tone one. I’m sorry, I really don’t know that much about makeup. I know like basics, but-”

“So I’ll give you a brief overview, as well.” Gemma finished for him, holding up the tube she’d just opened for him to look at. “This is concealer. You know, for covering like spots, or dark circles, things like that-”

“Are you saying I  _ need _ concealing?” Matty wasn’t sure whether he was supposed to be offended or not. He narrowed his eyes across at Gemma uncertainly.

“You don’t really need it, I guess no one really  _ needs _ it, I don’t know, I think it just looks better.” Gemma explained, glancing down at the few products she’d placed down on the ground between them.

“Fine, whatever. I think I’m stupid enough to trust you.” Matty let out a sigh, moving forward to allow Gemma to begin applying the concealer, mostly under his eyes, as really, Matty was well aware of his dark circles.

Gemma giggled a little. “You’re not stupid. Not at all.” She assured him, glancing down at her makeup bag for a moment. “Really, I should blend this in with a brush, but I’ve…”

“It’s fine if you use your fingers.” Matty let out a sigh, flashing Gemma a smile. “Really, I’ve had much worse things than your grubby fingers all over my face.”

Gemma raised an eyebrow as she leaned forward, holding his face still with one hand as she began to blend in his concealer. Matty couldn’t deny that there definitely was something therapeutic about this.

“What worse things?” She made the mistake of inquiring as she reached down for the bottle of foundation.

“I mean…” Matty let out a sigh, finding himself edging awkwardly around the subject before he thought fuck it and just went for it. “Cum. For a start. And cock. Cock too.

“ _ Matty. _ ” Gemma widened her eyes in disbelief. Really, she wasn’t quite so surprised about what he’d told her, but just how casually he’d offered it up.

“What actually is the point of foundation?” Matty found himself asking, watching as she squeezed some out onto the back of her hand, as if he’d never just casually slipped the subject of cum into their conversation. “I mean, your skin is already your skin tone, so like… what does it do?”

“Evens out your skintone really. I mean, most people don’t wear a full proper face of makeup everyday, I just thought I might as well go full out here.” She explained, applying the foundation to Matty’s face, again rubbing it in with her fingers. 

Really, there was something odd about their situation, something that if they were just any other two people in the world would be declared as weird. Yet somehow, this was normal. This was their normal. And not just that, this was comforting. Matty was calm. Properly. For the first time in far too long.

“I’m gonna go for a bit of powder on the top. That sets your foundation onto your face. It’s not  _ necessary _ , but it looks better.” Gemma reached for a circular plastic container, struggling to open it for a minute, before rummaging around in her bag. “Really do need a brush for this. I should be using brushes, this is hardly hygienic is it? I know I have some somewhere.” She rooted around in the bottom of her bag, eventually retrieving a large, fluffy brush from something like Narnia down there.

“Is this supposed to tickle?” Matty asked, unable to stop himself from grinning as Gemma spread the powder across his face with the brush. In response, she brushed it across his cheeks even more lightly than she had before. Matty recoiled a little, letting out an embarrassing little squeak as he did so.

“You’re ridiculous.” Gemma told him, rolling her eyes. “Properly ridiculous.” She told him, pulling a small palette out of her bag and then proceeded to glance down between it and Matty for a good few moments.

“What are you doing?” Matty asked, his voice a little tentative, but far from the kind of nervous he’d been before. He wasn’t sure if it was down to the makeup itself, or just the calming manner in which she’d applied it, coupled with the sweet tone to her voice. Or if it was the two of them together, sat on her bedroom floor, somehow worlds away from everything else in that moment.

“I’m not sure which shade of contour to use.” Gemma explained, turning the palette across to Matty. She pointed to two adjacent brown shades at the bottom of the plate. “It’s one of these two.”

“Go for the lighter one.” Matty suggested, shrugging vaguely as he decided.

“Yeah, that’s probably the better option, I mean I can always darken it if I need to.” She turned away, rooting around in her bag for another brush.

“I just picked a random one really, but yeah.” Matty admitted, meeting Gemma with a smile as she reached out held his head steady. Matty had thought that this might have been somewhat awkward, but he just felt comfortable, safe, even in with Gemma’s hand against his jaw.

“Pout a bit.” She told him, rolling her eyes at just how unnecessarily overdramatically Matty went for it. She didn’t care enough to properly comment on it, and instead just contoured his cheekbones, a little on his jawline, but she used it sparingly - careful to emphasise femininity over anything else.

“That’s highlighter, I know that.” Matty pointed, almost smugly as Gemma pulled away, moving her brush to one of the lighter shades in the palette.

“Well done.” She grinned up at him, before leaning forward again and applying a small amount of highlight to the top of his cheekbones, browbone, and just a little down the bridge of his nose.

“You know…” Matty trailed off, watching as Gemma turned back to her bag. “I just… I feel like the problem is that I definitely couldn’t replicate this myself, like… all… this like… you’re still on my skin and you’ve put about five different products on.”

“You don’t have to use all of these things.” She told him, opening a brow palette. “Just what you want to wear. And, I’ll do your makeup for you anytime you want, you know?”

“Is this like properly fun for you or is it just dull, or am I annoying? Are you frustrated by trying to make something decent out of my perpetually ugly face?” Matty laughed, leaving Gemma to tut a little as she held his head steady, filling in his eyebrows as carefully as she could.

“It’s relaxing, I think. I quite like doing it. I mean, I quite like doing makeup in general, and then… I can see this is making you happy, so that makes me happy, you know?” She explained, watching for a moment as a series of emotions flashed across his eyes. “You’re not ugly. At all.” She added, her voice sterner than it had been all day.

“I am. Well… I don’t know… not  _ ugly _ … just… I… it’s sort of hard to phrase…” Matty trailed off, letting the two sit in silence for a while as Gemma finished his brows.

She pulled away a few minutes later and Matty watched carefully as her face lit up with a smile. “Those are good brows. Honestly. I think I’ve outdone myself to be honest.”

Matty let out a giggle, watching as she pulled out an eyeshadow palette, containing more colours than Matty could have possibly imagined ever wanting to use. 

“Do you have any sort of look in mind? Like… colours or anything…?” Gemma asked, glancing down at the palette as she considered a few colour combinations herself.

Matty didn’t answer her, however. Well, he did, he just didn’t answer her question. “I’m not ugly. Maybe half ugly. It’s like…” He continued, leaving Gemma to quickly catch up to the reference to his previous point. “I’m not an ugly boy. I’m just an ugly girl. If that makes sense. Like femininity doesn’t quite look right. Even though it feels right. I feel like it’s so very… just  _ off _ .”

“Matty, let me tell you now, I’m not even done yet, but you look beautiful, alright?” She assured him, leaning closer to emphasis her point. “Don’t ever let yourself believe any of that shit, because honestly, it’s just not true. Now, do you have any colour suggestions?”

“Can it be like… a bit dark and dramatic, like a bit goth, but not like Marilyn Manson, just a bit… edgy? I don’t know-”

“Edgy?” Gemma burst into a fit of laughter. “God, Matty, you’re… ridiculous.” She let out a sigh, shaking her head. She complied, however, going for a sort of smokey eye look, with a gradient of browns into black. Gemma had never claimed to be any sort of professional makeup artist, but this definitely looked pretty good.

“Are you doing eyeliner next, because can you do one of those wings because they look so good and there’s no chance in hell that I’ll ever be able to do that?” Matty watched as she pulled out a tube of liquid eyeliner, grinning a little.

“I can’t promise it’s going to look spectacular, but I can do eyeliner wings.” She told him, realising suddenly that she’d put eyeliner on her own eyelid perhaps a thousand times before, but never actually on someone else’s.

Gemma held Matty’s face perhaps a little more tightly than she should have, succeeding in pulling off one near perfect wing, and then another which really wasn’t even at all, but she managed to fix to look decent enough.

“Alright, so you know… mascara…?” She began, reaching for another tube in her bag. “That’s the one for your eyelashes-”

“The one that blinds you-”

“Matty, look, it’s not going to  _ blind _ you-”

“It fucking  _ is _ !” Matty exclaimed, suddenly beginning to fear for his life.

“Look, just hold steady and it’ll be fine. We’re nearly done anyway, it’s just this, and then I’ve already picked out this really nice dark red lipstick.” She didn’t give Matty chance to argue over that before she leaned in, hoping to god that she didn’t blind Matty in the process, and applied two coats of mascara to his top lashes, and then a half coat to his bottom ones. She had wondered if it was a bit much, but as she pulled away and just properly  _ looked _ at Matty, she knew that it had been the right decision.

Surprisingly, Matty hadn’t put up any kind of argument in regards to the shade of lipstick Gemma had chosen, and instead was relatively silent and cooperative as she applied it, over drawing his cupid’s bow just a little bit.

“Fuck…” Gemma let out a sigh, fully taking in Matty’s appearance as he untucked a few strands of hair from behind his ears.

“Is that a good or bad… fuck…?” Matty asked, suddenly more nervous than he had ever been before.

“Unbelievably good.  _ Fuck _ , Matty, I’m-” Gemma was actually astounded, not far off speechless, and really, she wasn’t sure if it had so much to do with her actual ability with applying makeup, or just the way Matty made it work. Really, he’d been so, so wrong in thinking that he didn’t quite fit femininity. Really, Gemma wondered if she’d ever heard anyone be quite so wrong in her life.

Matty blushed a little, very much at a loss for what to say. “Can I see…?” He dared to ask, daring to face his appearance and the truth behind it all. There was no denying that he’d weighted entirely too much on this, and despite Gemma’s assurances, he was just so very terrified of being let down.

“I need to take a photo of you.” Gemma told him, not giving him an opportunity to say no before she pulled her phone out, leaving Matty to sit there, trying to look the least ugly he could as she snapped a few quick photos. “Honestly… you…” She flicked through the photos on her phone. “You look amazing.”

“Fuck, Gem- just… show me.” Matty didn’t wait for her to respond, and instead grew far too impatient, snatching the phone from her hands, his eyes meeting the image displayed before him, and then, his heart just about stopped.

“Fuck…” Matty felt his jaw drop, as if ready to make a permanent departure from the rest of his face entirely. “I look… I look… is that- fuck… I just…” He looked back up at Gemma. “Fuck… thank you… I… fuck…” He stumbled to his feet, turning to the mirror at the other side of her room, and properly meeting his reflection.

There, for the first time in what felt like forever, Matty caught his reflection in the mirror, and stood before him was someone he didn’t despise, loathe, or even have the slightest distaste for. Instead, stood someone that he hoped one day he just might have the guts to be, forever, permanently. As there, in Gemma’s room, that Friday evening, Matty finally saw an image of himself that aligned more with the person he knew he was inside than he could have ever imagined.

But fuck, as much as Matty knew that this was really him, a version of himself he could feel comfortable in, even proud to be, he knew with his whole being that there was just no way in hell that he could keep this on, that he could be around people like this, that he could be around George like this. Because through this all, still, Matty was just so very terrified.

But he found himself again a good half an hour later, body seeming to ache all over as he faced his reflection in the bathroom mirror. The water was cold, so cold that it burned him through his skin, right down to his bones. It wasn’t the water he’d been so bothered about at all, it was what remained afterwards. After he washed it all off, as he scrubbed and tore at his own skin too.

He stared at his reflection for a good few minutes: eyes red and raw, and skin seeming to have crumbled slightly under the harsh contact of his fingers. He stared at his reflection and struggled to come to terms with the fact that this, under everything else, was really him. It hurt in a weird kind of way. Much less like a sharp pain, but something more like a constant ache, only intensified at times. 

Matty struggled to tear his eyes away, to get on with his life, to get on with evening. To force a smile on his face, to step outside and pretend he hadn’t built up the whole world before his very eyes, just to tear it right back down to the ground again. He hated that it had to be this way. Hate was a strong word. Such a strong word. But he met his reflection in the mirror, he focused in on every imperfect part of himself, and suddenly, hate just wasn’t strong enough.

-

George had decided that this had to be the perfect way to waste away his Friday night. Still, he could think of just about a million things that he really should be doing instead, but nothing matched the appeal of a party: a night out with his friends, a night out to bury himself in everything that would hold no meaning come morning.

He didn’t want to go as far as to say that he was having a hard time, because he wasn’t. Especially not in the grand scheme of things, because there were people who were dying, and here he was, realising he was a little bit in over his head with his coursework. Of course, that wasn’t the only thing in the world that was bothering him, but there were just some things that George just didn’t let himself think about.

Really, George hadn’t expected to be the sort of person that Amber Bain wanted to invite to a party. Sure, Amber was nice enough, but he’d never really imagined that she actually liked him at all. He’d gathered that it wasn’t a big thing though: her friend’s party, and it did seem an awful lot like half the world was coming.

He’d asked his friend, Adam, to come along too, because as much as Amber was lovely, he wanted someone he actually knew decently around. Then, as if his night couldn’t get anymore chaotic, Ross and John had decided to tag along too. George hadn’t said anything, of course, because he was a decent human being, but him and Adam had shared a look, and there really just was a part of George that was practically ecstatic for the very moment he could get away from the two of them. They were the worst couple: forever attached at the hip.

When they’d first arrived, everyone had gone off for drinks, but George had stayed put, glancing around hopefully for any sign of Amber. He wasn’t entirely sure what he’d wanted to say to her, but he was sure he could think of something. Really, he just didn’t want to drink, especially not that night. He’d never been much for drinking in the first place, but he just didn’t entirely trust himself to end up wasted in the house of a girl he didn’t even know. He was, of course, sure that Amber’s friend was lovely, but there was just the matter that he’d never actually met her.

George admitted defeat eventually, coming to conclude that Amber was just about nowhere to be seen, and headed off after his friends, wondering if he just might let Adam talk him into having a beer, because he knew Adam well enough to know that he would at the very least try. It appeared, however, that the universe had developed somewhat of a grudge on him, as try as he might, he just couldn’t spot Adam, Ross, or John, anywhere. Really, they had to be somewhere, because it wasn’t even like it was a big house - there were just an awful lot of people crammed inside it. 

If George was being entirely honest with himself, he’d never really particularly liked house parties. He’d just gone along for the ride, and really for the hope there might be someone somewhere who he could bum a smoke off. It was safe to say that George didn’t have particularly high aspirations in life.

He wandered around aimlessly for a good five minutes or so, looking around vaguely for any hope of a familiar face. And really, he did think about texting someone to ask where they were, but there was just that part of him that didn’t want to be there at all. That part of him was steadily growing inside of him, coming even to consume him whole as he let out a sigh, slipping out through the backdoor and relishing in the sudden breath of fresh air that hit his lungs. 

It was then that George really became aware of his surroundings: of the dim light creeping into the small back garden he’d walked out into, and a figure sat down on the grass, off to the other side of the garden, back turned to George. Seeing as George liked to think that he wasn’t just a colossally annoying dickhead, he decided to leave whoever it was be, to their own business, just as he hoped they might leave him to his own as he decided just what the fuck he was actually going to do with himself. He thought just for a moment, as to why he’d really even agreed to come in first place. But then the smell hit him.

Within seconds, there was absolutely no doubt in George’s mind that it was weed. That, whoever it was over there, had positioned themselves down nicely with a lovely bag of weed. And really, George did like to think that he was more than a colossally annoying dickhead, but really, in that moment, as the last rays of the sunlight faded away over the horizon, there was no question about the fact that he’d kill a man for a spliff.

“Hey… mate… uhh…” George sort of lost track of his own thoughts, and really common sense itself, as he crossed over to the other side of the garden, lingering rather awkwardly just a little way behind the figure.

“What…?” The figure turned their head, eyes immediately latching onto George’s amidst the darkness. That moment, however, was nothing any kind of common sense could have possibly prepared George for.

“Fuck…” His eyes grew wide, blinking rapidly, as if he might manage to make this all just disappear. “Matty. Fuck- I… Matty… I-”

“George…” Matty trailed off, his heart rising in his chest as he fell apart into a sudden mess of emotions. Suddenly, this was everything, this was the climax of his whole week, and really, it was taking place out in Gemma’s garden with a bag of weed he’d nicked out of some guy’s coat earlier. That wasn’t something he’d been particularly proud of, but really, needs must.

“Matty…” George let out a sigh, mirroring Matty’s tone somewhat. He didn’t bother to ask for an invitation to sit down, instead taking the spot beside him without a moment’s thought.

“Please… look… alright… I know it was weird, I know I was being weird, and I know I’ve fucked you off somehow, because you obviously don’t want to see me again, but look, I’ve had a proper shitty night, and a proper shitty week, so can we just… just don’t alright?” Matty bit his lip, daring to glance across at George as he spoke. He was however, somewhat amused to see that George seemed to be far more interested in his weed than anything he might have to say for himself.

“Yeah.” George nodded, struggling to properly make sense of what it was that Matty really meant. “I just-... I’m sorry, alright?”

“You’re sorry? What the fuck have you done?” Matty shook his head in disbelief, following George’s eyes back down to the bag of weed. “Look, fucking help yourself, it’s not even mine.”

“Who’s is it?” George asked, not waiting for a response before he began to roll himself a spliff.

“Got no clue honestly.” Matty told him, letting out a nervous kind of breathy laughter: doing all he could to overcompensate, to fill in the gaps between the two of them, to make something out of this. Even when there was such a clear lack of anything at all. “Don’t call me a bad person but I nicked it out of someone’s coat pocket. It was stupidly easy, half the world’s left their fucking prized possessions out at the front of the house.”

“So you stole it…?” George stopped for a moment, unsure as to what kind of grasp he could possibly think he might already have on Matty as a person.

“Yeah, whatever, fine, that’s kind of fucked up, but where the fuck have you been for the past few weeks?” Matty couldn’t help but raise his voice, everything inside him reaching a certain point where it all began to break. “Where the fuck have you been? And then you’re just… just fucking here, and-... it’s fucked, everything’s so fucking  _ fucked _ . Why the fuck didn’t you come back, what the  _ fuck _ did I do?”

“Matty…” George’s voice was hesitant, nervous even, as he caught sight of the raw kind of emotional look in Matty’s eyes. “You didn’t do anything at all. I thought… honestly I thought… I don’t know what I thought, I just didn’t think you really wanted to see me again. Like you were politely trying to get me to fuck off for good. And then, really, I did need to try and get my life together instead of just wasting it away sat in a coffeeshop, you know?”

“Fuck’s sake.” Matty snapped, shaking his head. “What fucking- fuck…” He groaned, burying his head in his hands. “So I’m sorry if this makes me sound like the world’s biggest bellend but I’ve literally spent the past few fucking weeks worrying about what it is that I’ve done that’s made you fuck off. And that’s fucking ridiculous, because you’re just some fucking guy, like you’re  _ George _ , but I don’t know you, but you’re George, and now you’re here again, and I can’t just… I can’t just… I know you now. I’m about to cry in front of you we’ve reached that fucking stage. I just. I couldn’t get you out of my head, you know? Sounds proper pathetic, doesn’t it? I didn’t even mean it in a weird way, but maybe that is weird, but-”

“ _ Matty _ .” George interrupted him, reaching across and placing a hand down onto his shoulder. “Just… look… it’s  _ fine _ . I’m sorry. Look, it’s just… it’s… fuck… please don’t cry, alright? Please don’t cry. Why are you crying about this? What in god’s fucking name have I done that’s worth crying over? You shouldn’t be crying over me.”

Matty bit his lip, shaking his desperately, as to his credit, he did try. He did try so very hard not to cry. The thing was, however, that he just didn’t quite manage it.

“It’s not just you, alright.” Matty choked out, hating no moment in his life more than he’d come to hate this one. “Everything’s fucked, really. I was in tears like an hour ago as well, I’ve had a fucking night, you know? One hell of a fucking night. It’s hardly even night it’s fucking ten in the evening. Fucking hell, I should just go home and go to sleep, shouldn’t I? This is all so  _ fucked _ . And now I’m crying in front of you, and it’s just-”

“You can cry in front of me, it’s fine.” George assured him, his voice the kind of slow and soothing that Matty needed in that moment. The concern evident in his voice had somewhat come to instantly make up Matty’s entire world.

“Bit pathetic though, isn’t it?” Matty sighed, moving a little closer to George - really, unable to help himself.

“Bit pathetic of me never to go back into a coffeeshop because I was scared of what some guy thought of me, though, wasn’t it?” George met him with a smile. “Come on, do you want to talk about it?”

“About what?” Matty asked, his voice entirely too fast paced, as if he was just entirely terrified about what it was that could lie waiting on his tongue.

“About whatever you want. About whatever’s bothering you. I’ll listen if you want me to. And I’m not going to judge you, I promise.” And somehow, that, combined with the gentle tone of George’s voice, and the little bag of weed shared between them, was all Matty really did need.

He took just a minute for himself, taking a drag of his spliff and trying to drown himself in his grasping, desperate intake of breath. He wasn’t nearly high enough yet; he still felt like himself. High was different to drunk, so somehow, this just didn’t seem to mean so much at all. 

Matty was struck by a rather radical idea, however, because suddenly, for the first time, it hit him - it wasn’t getting high that was going to solve all of his problems, it was actually acknowledging them aloud.

“Alright…” He let out a sigh, unsure as to quite where he perhaps should begin. Part of him wanted to ease into things, to over explain everything down to the very last detail, but somehow, in the evening light, in their own little world out there, that didn’t seem to mean anything at all. Nothing seemed to hold the same value it perhaps would have in the light, inside, in the warmth, spoken to familiar faces. This was just George. And Matty knew this to be the start of accepting that he just didn’t mean as much as he liked to think that he did.

“So. Last weekend.” Matty turned to George, holding his gaze with every ounce of bravery he just wished he could have had. “I went out to a club, and I got very drunk. Maybe even too drunk. I mean, probably too drunk, but I met this guy. Well, I didn’t  _ meet _ him. But I met him properly. His name’s Ryan. And he was too nice to me. All compliments and buying me drinks and all that shit, so yeah. I let him take me back to his place. I was beyond drunk, like absolutely out of it, maybe just sobering up a little by the time we were in bed together. By the time he fucked me.” Matty paused for a moment, watching the sudden shift of emotions and realisation upon George’s face.

He didn’t, however, give him ample chance to respond. To give the usual generic acceptance speech. Matty wasn’t here to hear that kind of bullshit. “At the time, it was like the most wonderful thing in the world, because I don’t know. I just… he wasn’t even properly hot, he just-... he was just… anyone. As fucked as it sounds, I was just absolutely over the moon with the fact that anyone would fuck me. Like that meant something. Because I really thought it did. Then afterwards, everything immediately just fizzled out, like it sort of just hit me. What I’d done and I’ve not been able to get rid of the guilt since.”

“The guilt?” George inquired, leaving Matty astounded by the fact that his first response had been something not immediately linked to his sexuality.

“Yeah. I really shouldn’t have fucked him.” Matty admitted, letting out a sigh. “You know Gemma?” George shook his head. “Fucking hell. You know Amber, don’t you? She’s in your classes, yeah. Well, this is Gemma’s party, this is Gemma’s house. Gemma’s my best friend. Like  _ best _ friend. And… Ryan… Ryan’s sort of her ex-boyfriend. That  _ I _ made her leave.”

“Oh…” George trailed off his eyes growing wide. “Have you told her?”

“Fuck, no. Jesus fucking… fuck no. She’ll kill me. She’ll hate me- I  _ should _ . I really should. I have to. I mean eventually. And then, the guilt is killing me. I guess it’s going to be worse if she doesn’t find out from me, I just-... it’s fucked, honestly. The reason I made her end it with him was because I thought he was being homophobic to me, because he kept looking at me funny. Fuck that, turns out he was checking me out- fuck… that’s fucked- that’s… who the fuck checks out their girlfriend’s best friend. Well, they- they were never  _ officially _ together. But it was definitely a thing.”

“It sounds like he’s a dick, to be honest.” George add his own view of the situation, his tone rather honest and perhaps even blunt, which was something Matty was just entirely grateful for. “He could have said no. He didn’t  _ have _ to fuck you. He didn’t have to look at you like he did. I mean… you did fuck up a bit, but it wasn’t all you.”

“I guess that doesn’t matter though.” Matty shook his head. “Gemma doesn’t give two shits about him anymore. She cares so much about me. It just makes me feel like shit, because the other day I’d locked myself up in my room to avoid everyone because I didn’t want to face her and the guilt of what I’d done, and that, and then she fucking climbs in through my kitchen window because she’s worried about me. Then comes and sits with me all sympathetic and concerned, and it’s just-”

“If she cares about you that much, if you mean that much to her, I don’t think this one thing is going to ruin your friendship forever.” George hoped he might be able to reassure Matty a little, but if he was being entirely honest with him, he really didn’t know what he was talking about. “Then again, I don’t know Gemma, so…”

“I need to tell her.” Matty bit his lip, suddenly determined to do so. “I’d want her to tell me if she fucked a guy I’d been with.” Matty did his best not to think about George in that situation. He really did try, it just didn’t quite work out. “I just don’t know how. I mean, do I just pop round and just tell her that I had her ex-boyfriend’s dick up my ass-”

“Maybe don’t be quite so blunt about it.” George suggested, chuckling a little. “That really is one way to put it. Maybe just… sit her down, start with explaining why, don’t go straight into it, tell her the whole story, you know? I mean, she’s never going to love you for it, but you can try to make it go as smoothly as possible.”

“Mmm…” Matty nodded, letting out a sigh. “I guess… yeah. I have to. I mean, it’s going to kill me sooner or later and it’s not like there’s anyone else I can tell. Amber and Marika would both tell her. Even if I made them promise. Not that they’re shit friends. Honestly, I think keeping that promise would make them shit friends, don’t you think?”

George shrugged. “Depends, doesn’t it?” He turned away, watching the sky for a moment as he let a few thoughts glaze over his mind. “So you’re going to tell her?”

“Soon yeah.” Matty nodded; deep down, he wasn’t entirely sure as to just how well he might adhere to that promise. 

“So, what else is it that’s bothering you? You said it was lots of things, didn’t you?” George continued, unable to stop his head from spinning around in circles, and somehow always landing back on Matty’s own rather blunt description of him sleeping with Ryan. George couldn’t quite explain that one to himself, it was just…  _ something _ .

“Honestly…” Matty let out a sigh, moving so he was sat opposite George, forcing himself to hold eye contact. “My sexuality. And come on, I know you want to say something. You want to say a million things. You want to ask a million things. I can see it in your eyes. But it’s okay. I’m going to let you.”

“I didn’t want to bring it up if you don’t want to discuss it, I mean, no one goes round demanding the ins and outs of straight people’s sexualities, so there’s no reason why you should have to. But I can’t help being curious, you know?” George inhaled deeply, leaving Matty to watch for a moment as smoke floated around him, drifting off into little clouds, as if they were not down on the ground, but indeed floating up in the skies themselves.

“Mmm…” Matty nodded, biting his lip. “I was surprised actually. Thought you’d pull out the whole generic, ‘oh my god, are you gay?’ speech, and pretend to be surprised, like even though I’m the most effeminate person you’ve ever seen. And then go off on the whole, ‘I still accept you, it’s okay to be gay’ speech, like… you know… I don’t already know, or care. Everyone knows that’s just what straight people say as a default, because it makes them uncomfortable, they don’t know what else to say. Coming out makes straight people uncomfortable. It does. They don’t know how to deal with it, suddenly their best heterosexual bro likes it up the ass, and now they’ve got to deal with their own narcissistic ideas about the crush they obviously have on them, because obviously everyone attracted to men is attracted to  _ every _ man, because that’s  _ so _ how it works.” 

Matty paused for a moment, taking in the look in George’s eyes, doing all he could to place some sort of meaning behind it. “I was surprised, though.”

“Didn’t make me uncomfortable, I guess. It wasn’t that the idea of you being gay didn’t surprise me, like I always assumed it, because I didn’t. It’s just… not significant to me. Like… doesn’t matter if you fucked your best friend’s ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend, you’ve still got the same shit to deal with.” George shrugged, watching the way Matty seemed to regard him a little differently, as if perhaps something he’d said had struck a chord with him. 

“Are you even straight, because I-?” Matty cut himself off, his brain seeming to short circuit itself entirely at the mere possibility.

“I’ve not really thought extensively about my sexuality, I mean, I’ve not really found the need to, but I’m attracted to women. So yeah, I’m straight.” George finished, leaving Matty to deal with just what that meant. Somehow, it didn’t seem to mean just what he thought it should have. It didn’t seem to affect him so much at all. “I’ve had two of my best friends come out to me before though. Years ago.”

“Oh, alright. Were you uncomfortable then?” Matty asked, a little curious.

“No, I wouldn’t say so. I just I didn’t expect it really. Like, it was my first proper encounter with gay people. That sounds so fucked doesn’t it, that I’d never really known a gay person until I was fifteen?”

Matty nodded in agreement. “Society’s fucked, isn’t it?”

“But honestly I’d say I’m more uncomfortable now. Now that they’ve been dating for a year and literally seem to be joined at the hip and I have to accidentally walk in on them making out on at least a weekly basis. But they’re still some of my best friends, you know?” George smiled a little. “Honestly it’s quite sweet, I’m just bitter and lonely.”

Matty laughed, finding that he was somewhat unable to stop himself from warming up to George. He wasn’t sure just what it was about him, but he had one of those faces, he was one of those people, that seemed to assure you that they’d listen and understand every word.

“They’re here tonight, you know? You could meet them if you want, but I’ve got no idea where they’ve gone off to. Adam as well. Adam’s my token straight friend.” George grinned, his smile only widening as Matty rolled his eyes at him.

“I’d rather just…” Matty trailed off, biting his lip as he struggled to find the words. “It’s not that I don’t want to meet them. Just maybe not right now. I’m not in the mood to deal with people really, to going back in there, and you know, dealing with the world.”

“Odd mood to decide to come to a party in.” George commented, raising his eyebrows.

“Yeah.” Matty nodded in agreement. “Funny thing is Gemma threw this whole thing to try and make me feel better. When really I’ve been feeling so shit this week mainly because of what happened with Ryan. It’s fucked, honestly.”

“Oh-”

“I was alright earlier though.” Matty added, somewhat in his own defence. “Things got a bit fucked though. Really, I’m in the state where I need to get drunk, like blackout drunk, but I can’t do that to myself right now, especially with what happened last week. And honestly, I’m just terrified I’ll get so drunk that I’ll tell Gemma. That I’ll tell her wrong, and properly fuck things up, you know?”

“Getting drunk isn’t really going to get you anywhere regardless.” George told him, raising his eyebrows as Matty gave little more than a shrug in response. “I hardly drink, alright, but… you know… it’s not going to fix things for you. I think that’s when people really fuck things up, when they use drink to fix things.”

“Yeah. You’re right.” Matty nodded: desperate to convince himself that he was worlds away from that point. Although in reality, he was likely closer than he could ever fathom. “Sometimes I just really wish I wasn’t myself. Like it’s just these things… the fucking mess I’ve made of my life. I’m not really the epitome of good moral choices, I’ll never be, but… it’s just, you know, the things I wouldn’t want my little brother to know about me.”

Matty didn’t give George enough chance to respond before he continued. “And I guess the solution is to just be a better person, but some of the things I’m so terrified of him knowing are just things I can’t change. Like fuck, I really hate to think about it, and hate even more to admit it, but… I just… I’m really kind of terrified about him finding about like my sexuality and… yeah…” He let out a sigh. “It’s not even like I’ve got a homophobic family or anything, it’s just… I don’t know what it is. I’m just so scared. I’m scared of everything really.”

George met him with a careful look in his eyes. “Everything?” Matty nodded. “Are you scared of me?” He raised his eyebrows.

Matty thought for a moment, struggling to quite articulate the varying ideas from his brain. In the end, however, he came to one overbearing conclusion. “No.”

George opened his mouth as if to respond, but Matty was just so terrified of what he might say to that. “Everyone else here though, yeah. I’m scared of going back inside, of having to force myself to just  _ be _ . To be this person.” He glanced down at himself with discontempt. 

Matty took a moment to brace himself before continuing. “I’m scared to look out and see this crowd, to make out all these faces, and then to look at these… these beautiful girls with boyfriends sat beside them, seeming like they have all the love and not a single care in the world. You know, sometimes, I stare at girls like that for ages. In the coffeeshop sometimes. I stare at them and I struggle to figure out just what it is about them - whether I want to fuck them or be them.”

George gave him a look an awful lot like he didn’t have the slightest clue in the world as to just what he was supposed to say to that. It was okay though. Matty didn’t really expect anything from him at all.

“But it’s really not like I’ve looked at a girl and known I’ve wanted to fuck her in forever.” Matty admitted, perhaps more to himself than George this time around. “I guess that…” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Leaves the latter.”

George met him with a look of genuine concern, his voice as soft and comforting as he could muster. “What do you mean?”

Matty simply shook his head however. “Not now, alright. Just… not right now.”

And then they just sat together, smoking until the night grew far too cold to sit out through anymore.

-

The early morning was all too bright, seeping into the room with what almost seemed to be a sense of upset upon its tongue. It didn’t take much to rouse Matty in the first place, and despite the early hour they’d sat up smoking until last night, he found his eyes flickering open to a bold six forty five displayed on the clock.

Matty let out a groan, forcing his eyes shut again as he buried his head back down into the pillow. He wasn’t far from just drifting back off completely, but instead found himself hit by a sudden kind of jarring realisation. It was the realisation of the fact that he just couldn’t quite recall exactly how he’d got to bed last night, to Gemma’s spare room, and really just what had become of the evening.

He’d lost his senses some time earlier that morning, in too much smoke, and his heart poured out right into his cupped hands, held outstretched before him. As he lay there, face down on the bed in Gemma’s spare room, he couldn’t help but regret how he’d poured his heart out to George. There had been something therapeutic about it - something special, even. It did, however, do little to change the fact that by morning, he was still faced with the same worries, matched with a great ache that had spread throughout his body.

It was just as he rolled over in bed in a desperate attempt to get himself to drift off back to sleep, that his eyes grew wide, almost doing a double take as he laid his eyes upon George in bed next to him. And just like that, there were a good few minutes where Matty didn’t breathe at all, coupled with a silence that seemed to span out for years.

Then suddenly, he found his outstretched fingers tapping gently against George’s arm, met with a soft, almost apprehensive tone of voice. “George…” Matty’s words seemed to just fizzle out amidst the silence.

Then again. “George…” And the tapping grew more frantic, desperate even, as Matty struggled to fill in the gaps for himself.

Despite his persistent efforts to get his attention, Matty practically jumped out of his skin the very moment that George filled did stir: letting out a groan and rolling onto his side, lazily rolling his eyes open to focus on Matty.

“Mmm… what?” He mumbled into the quiet of the room, his eyes never leaving Matty’s, even with heavy lids desperate just to weigh them down.

“What… what happened last night?” Matty dared to ask, leaving George to think for a while. The moment that their current situation actually hit him could have been visible from a mile off; his eyes grew desperately wide, as if they were trying to take in the whole world around him, and he immediately sat up in bed, his gaze darting frantically around the room.

Matty hopelessly wanted to fill the silence, to break the tension somewhat, but really just couldn’t bring himself to do so.

“We got stoned.” George began, his voice slow and blatantly uncertain. “Out in the garden. And talked about things, about what had been bothering you, and we stayed out… late… until it was freezing, until you were practically huddled into my side for warmth, and then we had to go back inside. I think you took us up here to get some quiet away from everybody else.”

“Alright…” Matty nodded, finding himself to not be  _ entirely _ convinced by George’s recollection of the truth, but really he had no better ideas. “Not to be…” He paused for a moment, encountering something that he reckoned he just really shouldn’t mention aloud. He did so regardless. Because it was six forty five in the morning, he’d woken up in bed next to George Daniel, and his head was so very desperately all over the place.

“Be what?” George filled in the silence for him, raising his eyebrows as he met Matty with a certain sense of concern. 

“Weird… about anything. To make anything weird, but look, can you just one hundred percent guarantee that you didn’t fuck me- like not to make it weird or anything, because look, I need to know, and after I wake up in bed with someone after a night I can’t really remember, it tends to have turned out to be so.” Matty buried his face away in a blush, not even wanting to so much as glance across at George as he struggled to form a response.

“We didn’t. Promise.” George told him, his voice the kind of calm and unfazed that Matty would have never in a million years expected to hear.

“Okay.” Matty nodded, doing all he could to hide the fact that he was just that little bit disappointed. “Thanks.”

“I think we’d  _ know _ .” George offered, a smile slipping onto his lips as he glanced across at Matty. “I mean… not to make this weird or anything… but… for a start, you’re so little, I think I honestly might just break you.”

Matty forced a laugh, desperately trying to ignore the horrible things George’s words had done to his insides. “You wouldn’t break me.” He rolled his eyes, forcing himself to his feet and across towards the window. “You could try. But like fuck would you  _ break me _ .” Matty scoffed, pushing the window open and letting in a gust of fresh air.

“I’m just  _ saying _ …” George flushed a horrible shade of red. The kind that made him rather glad that Matty had turned his back to him. “You’re quite little… and I’m… I’m quite…  _ big _ …”

Matty snorted, reaching a hand out to steady himself against the wall.

“ _ What _ ?” George made an outcry: a desperate attempt to defend himself. “I  _ am _ . I’m well over six feet tall.”

“Regardless, I don’t need to hear about your dick before it’s even seven in the morning.” Matty perched himself on the edge of the windowsill, meeting George with an absent-minded kind of smirk. “Or  _ references _ to your dick, even.”

“Fucking hell, I-” George shook his head in disbelief, burying his head out in his hands.

“And look, it’s not like I haven’t taken a big dick ever before in my life, is it?” Matty rolled his eyes across the room at George. “ _ Honestly _ , what kind of person do you take me for?”

-

Somehow, a good half of the people who’d attended the party last night were still around come seven that morning, when George and Matty finally retreated from the cover of Gemma’s spare room. They didn’t however, glance a single person that didn’t look either passed out or severely out of it, and really neither of them were particularly in much of a mood to deal with either hungover strangers or even their hungover friends.

There wasn’t even anything in the kitchen. Matty had dragged George down in search of breakfast, and had frantically searched the cupboards for anything that was perhaps even kind of vaguely edible, but the best thing he came to show for himself was a particularly depressing looking box of Tesco value cornflakes. 

Matty decided then that being completely sober when everyone around you was just worlds away was actually the worst thing in the world. It was in that moment, however, that he began to realise that he was just so very thankful for George. And for a moment, Matty stood in Gemma’s kitchen and just looked at George, at this guy who’d sat through and listened to practically every trouble he could have possibly relayed to him, this guy he’d woken up with, but somehow hadn’t slept with. This guy that was somehow more than that, somehow more than anything else that Matty had ever known. He stood there in Gemma’s kitchen, and knew for certain, that if George could ever be attracted to him, George would more than certainly be way out of his league.

It was then that George met him with a warm kind of lazy smile, slipping his phone back into his pocket and giving Matty his full attention. “I’ll take you out for breakfast, come on.”

And then, for a good minute afterwards, Matty didn’t breathe at all.

-

It wasn’t exactly the height of luxury or sophistication, but it was seven o’clock on a Saturday morning, and the shitty little cafe on the end of the street meant the world to Matty. Really, if he was being entirely honest with himself, however, it had far more to do with the fact that it was George that had taken him there.

“I’m sorry about last night.” The two had sat in relative silence after they’d gotten their breakfast, with George burying himself behind a large mug of black coffee for what had seemed an awful lot like forever. Eventually, however, it had been Matty that had broken the silence.

“Sorry?” George raised his eyebrows, placing his coffee back down on the table and meeting Matty with a curious glance.

“Yeah.” Matty gave a nod, leaning back in his chair as he thought just how he might articulate the mess that had run back through his head. “I kind of dumped a load of shit on you with like no warning, and we hardly know each other. I mean, I feel like… I feel like I know you better now. I mean, we woke up in bed together… that’s something. Even if it was just what it was, it’s still something.”

“Still something.” George repeated, his voice softer than perhaps he’d even expected it to be. “I don’t mind at all, Matty. You needed to get it off your chest.”

“Everything’s still a mess.” He let out a sigh, resting his head against the palm of his hand, his elbow propped up on the table.

“Why?” George asked, not expecting Matty to really know the answer.

“I don’t know. I guess… I guess it’s mainly just what I didn’t talk to you about.” He shook his head, letting his drift off elsewhere, focusing instead out of the cafe window, to the world outside, to the slow beginning of the early morning.

“Why didn’t you?” George bit his lip, noticing the change in Matty. He knew there was a limit to how much he could help, especially considering their circumstances, and the way, that really everything had already felt like it had happened to fast. Really, a part of him knew he shouldn’t take some guy he barely knew out for breakfast, but Matty was sweet, and he was going through a hard time, and this was just the kind of thing that George reckoned he deserved.

Matty shrugged, words beginning to lodge in his throat. “I… I… there’s just… I can’t. I can’t. With some things I just  _ can’t _ .”

“That’s okay.” George assured him. “You don’t have to tell me anything at all. I just wish I could help somehow, but I’m guessing that I can’t.”

“Not really no.” Matty agreed, daring to meet George’s gaze again, just for a quick second.

“I’m happy to listen to whatever you want to tell me, though. You know that, don’t you?” He continued, watching as Matty met him with something he had never come to expect: surprise.

“Why?” Matty’s tone was blunt, and very much all of a sudden. He leaned back in his chair and held George’s gaze. “Why?” He repeated, quickly growing impatient.

“Because… I…” George stopped for a moment: really, Matty had a point. And for a good few seconds, he sat in that cafe without the slightest clue as to how and why they’d come down to this. “It’s…”

“I get the feeling that you genuinely seem to care about me.” Matty admitted, eyeing George curiously. “It’s nice, but it’s… I can’t figure out why.”

“I do.” The words left George’s lips before he could consider them for even a minute. “You seem a lot like you need someone to care about you. Someone to listen, you know?”

“What?” Matty raised his eyebrows in disbelief. “So I’m a charity case now?”

“No.” George raised his voice rather suddenly. “No, Matty, come on. You  _ know _ I didn’t mean it like that. I care about you because I like you.”

“You  _ like _ me?” Matty rolled his eyes. “Well, that’s good to know-”

“ _ Matty _ .” George leaned forward, curling his fingers around Matty’s wrist. “Shut up a minute.” He smiled, his words gentle and playful at best. Matty, however, flushed bright red: George’s fingers around his wrist doing horrible things to his mind, bringing him right back to everything terrible he’d ever once thought about George. 

And then the guilt for it all began to set in, because this Saturday morning, unlike every one before, he’d woken up and found George to be something rather like a friend.

“Uhh… yeah… sorry… I… yeah…” Matty stammered, pulling his hand away, burying his face desperately behind his mug of tea.

“Sorry…” George began, his voice tentative, uncertain, and just so very confused.

“Don’t be.” Matty forced a smile back onto his face, looking back up towards George. “Not your fault. I’m… I’m being a git. I’m really grateful that you care and that you listened. Honestly, George, it means the world. And taking me out like this. Honestly, did you even listen to me last night, like you do know I’m a terrible person right? I don’t deserve this at all.”

“But you do.” George assured him, finding that perhaps, in regards to Matty, it was just the one thing that he could be sure of. “And you’re not terrible. Not at all. Not in the slightest-”

“Don’t lie to me.” Matty bit his lip, shaking his head quickly.

“I’m not.” George protested, holding Matty’s gaze as he spoke: desperate to convey it as it was - the truth. “Honestly, Matty, I think… I think you’re wonderful.”

“I think…” Matty began, words turning dry in his mouth. “I think… you just…” He trailed off, words dissipating into the air around them, before he came to a rather sudden conclusion, the words finally beginning to sit right in not just his throat, but in his heart too. “I think you think too much of me.” 

George laughed: a genuine kind of happy laughter. “But still, Matty, I really do think you’re wonderful.”

And George’s words touched Matty in a way that his grip on his wrist couldn’t even begin to explain. It wasn’t about the touch of fingertips, of patterns left both on his skin and his mind, it wasn’t about private thoughts, and secrets he dared to think he might keep to the grave. It was about his words, and the meaning behind them that reached straight inside and touched the very core of his heart.

-


	4. this is irrelevant but i met david cameron yesterday and i dont know why but it got me so shook

As the world grew colder, the sky began to clear. Frost against windowpanes meant little when deep inside, blood no longer ran cold, and hearts finally calmed themselves to a consistent, rhythmic beating.

Matty found himself in quite the position that next Friday. He was perhaps even worlds away from the person he’d thought he’d end up to be. From where he’d been before, there could have only been two vastly different outcomes from Gemma’s party, and that come the next weekend, he’d either find George to have faded out into the background and entirely out of his life, or he’d find himself waking up in George’s bed. In the way they hadn’t been that Saturday morning. In the way that had forever been on Matty’s mind.

The thing was, however, that neither of those things did actually happen. But Matty wasn’t even disappointed. Here he was - better off, but far from all smiles and perfection, because despite that, this was real life. Although Matty did reckon he mostly lived up inside his own head, he certainly couldn’t settle down and make any kind of permanent residence up there.

For a start, he’d barely spoken to Gemma over the past few days. Nothing had really happened between them. Nothing new anyway. It was just the guilt. The fact that he still hadn’t said a word. And really, Matty had been so genuinely convinced that he would, but instead he’d found himself so caught up in George and every word he’d said to him - to the kind of trust that had almost immediately set in between them. 

Matty even reckoned that despite the few days in which they’d actually spoken, George already knew and understood him in ways that the rest of the world could barely even begin to comprehend.

Or maybe Matty was just stupid. Stupidly in love. Heart held out in his hands, head over heels, in a lovestruck heap on the floor. In love. Desperate, but forever smiling.

George just made him happy. There was no questioning that. Somehow, that was enough. It was a whole new kind of happy really - the kind of happy that wasn’t just a smile upon his lips, but the kind of happiness that radiated a warm glow of light and hope throughout his whole body. It was the kind of happiness that really felt like something special. A once in a lifetime kind of thing, and Matty found himself so very terrified of losing it. Of losing George, of losing whatever was held behind late night phone calls and a constant chain of text messages. As it had to be  _ something _ , after all.

Still, Matty wasn’t quite so stupid as not to realise that he was neglecting just about everything and everyone else in his life for George. He was just stupid enough not to care however, because suddenly George was everything, and really, at the back of his mind, Matty was so very aware as to just what that meant, and as to just what consequences could come of it. But still, he did nothing to change it.

Instead, he found himself even more than prepared to let everything else crumble to pieces around him as long as he could spend the night with George. As long as they could stay up until the early morning: smoking and chatting shit about everything and everyone. Matty imagined that he might never run out of things to say to George. Stories he wanted to tell him. But still, despite that, Matty  _ knew _ that he would never run out of things he could  _ never  _ say to George.

As despite how perfect Matty reckoned George had to be, George still knew nothing about his gender, and although Matty was convinced that he wouldn’t, he  _ could _ hate him for it. And on top of that, there was the matter of Matty’s feelings, and the fact that at the back of his mind, Matty did know that they wouldn’t be reciprocated - at least not in the way he needed them to be, but still, it seemed that he was stupid enough as to not let that affect him.

Matty finished his shift at five, finding he had no longer than a minute to himself and his own terrible thoughts before he caught sight of George - waiting for him outside the coffee shop. They had made plans to meet up that Friday night since the very start of the week, but in no world had Matty ever imagined that George would have gone to the effort to do so much as to pick him up from work.

George met him with a smile, a cigarette outstretched in his hand,opened out towards Matty. Wordlessly, Matty put the cigarette to his lips, letting go of his whole world in that very moment, as the two began on their way. Matty let George do the talking: let George tell him about every single detail of his day, and Matty remained by his side, doing all he could to focus on the actual words leaving George’s mouth, and not the way he curled his lips in around them.

Matty was, however, stupid enough to let his mind wander. To let himself play host to his worst vices, to every thought he was just so much better off without. He just couldn’t deny how good it all felt - to have George so close to him that it almost felt possible, but still, despite that, his hopes just always seemed to be so far away. And that tied Matty’s stomach into far more complicated knots than even all of his particularly filthy thoughts ever could.

With time, Matty slowly pulled himself back into reality, focusing back in on George’s smile: on the way he seemed to look at him with all the care and love in the world. In the way that somehow, in looks like these, in these small specific moments, Matty felt so much more like those beautiful, happy girls he saw at parties - more than he could have ever imagined. For in those few moments, Matty really did feel like he had the world, and it was offering itself up to him, right in the palm of his own hands.

From then on, he just couldn’t wipe the smile off his face for the whole walk to George’s. Not even for a moment.

-

George’s house was warm. Bright. An interior that seemed to reflect that very smile that seemed to mean the world. And as much as Matty had perhaps wanted to, he didn’t have the rest of the time in the world to sit around admiring the colour of George’s living room walls.

“So who’s this?” Matty jumped a little as a middle aged woman appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. It didn’t take him long to figure that this had to be George’s mum, but still, she surprised him a little bit. He hadn’t been entirely too sure what he might have expected from her, but it definitely wasn’t the smiling dark haired woman he was faced with.

“Matty.” George answered for him, moving closer to Matty almost protectively. Matty did wonder if he’d noticed the way he’d jumped, and just what he might have thought of the startled look in his eyes.

“And…?” She raised her eyebrows, gesturing for him to continue, as if just ‘Matty’ really wasn’t enough.

“He’s my friend.” George supplied, blushing a little, as there was just about no denying the fact that his mum was making this situation far more uncomfortable for him than it ever should have been. “And we’re gonna… like… I don’t know… hang out together… is that alright?”

“I’m just  _ curious _ .” She rolled her eyes, seeming to brush George off entirely, as she instead chose to meet Matty with the same kind of warm, comforting look that George often did. He didn’t quite feel anywhere near as on edge anymore.

“Nice to meet you.” Matty added, cheeks reddening. “Sorry.” He added, although not entirely sure what he was apologising for.

“Don’t worry about it, dear.” She smiled across at him, looking between George and Matty for just a moment. “Nice to meet you too.”

“Mum, you’re being weird-” George pleaded, desperately trying to just drag Matty off upstairs before his mum decided it would be a good idea to relay every embarrassing moment that had ever occurred throughout his entire life to him, or something like that.

“I’m not being weird at all, George. It’s like you’re trying to sneak off with him. So what exactly  _ is _ it that you don’t want me to know?” She raised her eyebrows, glancing back between the two of them. It took Matty a moment to catch her drift before he found himself choking on his own breath.

“ _ Nothing _ .” George told her rather definitively. “At all.”

“Are you  _ sure _ ? You can talk to me if you want-” Really, George had to appreciate that she was being nice about things, and that if he and Matty did happen to be fucking, or whatever else she might have been suggesting, he really would have been thankful for it. But considering the fact that they weren’t, it really didn’t half make George just want to die.

“We’re not.” Matty blushed, somehow finding the courage to meet her gaze. “Like really not. Just friends, alright? I promise you. Honestly, I’m telling everyone about my sex life, me - you’d  _ know _ if we were.”

“Oh… alright.” She raised her eyebrows, George wondered if somehow, Matty’s explanation had done even more to convince her that there was indeed something going on. Still, it wasn’t his fault, and as much as it really did make him want to melt away into the floor, he just couldn’t blame him at all.

“Yeah.” George nodded, flashing his mother a smile across the room, and grabbed Matty by the arm, pulling him off upstairs before anyone could say otherwise. He thought perhaps manhandling Matty might not have been the best of tactics, considering his mother’s current suspicions, but George doubted that he could really make things by any means worse.

Oddly, George’s room seemed to be the least ‘George-like’ part of the house. In Matty’s view at least. The walls, were however, covered in photos of him and other people that Matty didn’t quite recognise, the kind of memorabilia that might tell his entire life story. They were however, just snapshots, just small glances of the person he’d been. 

The room did little to reflect who he was: what lay behind that smile on his face, what made his voice quite so gentle, and what made him look at Matty like he did, despite everything else. Memories could make you anyone. Memories, were of course, shared. It was moments, though, that you kept to yourself, moments that would forever slip you by, unless you treasured them and forever kept them close.

George left Matty to let the walls around him absorb his attention. He didn’t much mind him walking around and glancing at pretty much every single photograph in turn, as of course, he had put them up on his walls for a reason. George, however, had seen them all perhaps a thousand times before, and instead found far more cause for interest in the box of cigarettes he kept hidden in one of his bedside drawers.

“What do you think then?” George spared a glance across in Matty’s direction as he pushed the window open, disregarding the cold chill in favour of lighting himself a cigarette. He kept the packet open beside him, figuring that Matty would likely end up begging him for one soon enough.

“Of what?” Matty snapped back into reality, his eyes following George’s gaze down to the windowsill. Wordlessly, as George had expected, he joined him at the window and let himself a cigarette.

“This…” George gestured vaguely around his bedroom. “I mean… you were certainly looking for quite a while. Seems like there has to be something on your mind.”

Matty shrugged: there was, he had just decided that it was perhaps just one of those things that he was better off simply not thinking about. “Not really.” He lied. “Your mum’s nice, though. Even if she just seem convinced you’re gay or something.”

“Honestly, I have no idea.” George let out a laugh. A genuine laugh, in place of what Matty had expected to be an uncomfortable kind of nervous laughter. Still, it didn’t half surprise him as to just how comfortable George was with the idea of sexuality as a whole. 

“Maybe it’s how comfortable you are with sexuality?” Matty offered, finding it to be his best hope of a reasonable suggestion.

“Nah, I get that from her really. She is as well, don’t you think?” George grinned, exhaling deeply and hiding his smile away amidst a cloud of smoke. “Maybe it’s do with John and Ross. I don’t know. Maybe not - she’s not mentioned it before. Maybe it’s something to do with you.”

“Something to do with me and how incredibly gay I am?” Matty smirked, unable to stop the idea from amusing him. He found himself oddly comfortable that day - somehow it was easier, just to call himself gay and be done with it. To brush everything away, at keeping it from properly bothering him, for just as long as he physically could. 

He knew, of course, that it wasn’t quite right, but everything seemed lessened somewhat, as he stood beside George, eyes set out there on the sky, like George was the sun, and he was the moon. Connected forever as two opposite halves, who would fit into one perfect whole, but who never were quite able to fit themselves into that mould.

George snorted, unable to stop his mind drifting back to that one conversation last Saturday morning, to the slight suggestion of something going on between them. Despite the fact that he really just knew he shouldn’t, George allowed himself to consider it, plainly out of curiosity, and did his best to ignore the way it made him feel. It wasn’t weird. It was just different - the kind of thing he didn’t need to concern himself with that evening.

“Yeah… I guess. I mean, she’s met like four of my ex-girlfriends, she’s got no reason to really think I’m into dudes, but it’s nice of her, isn’t it? Like she shouldn’t assume I’m not, just because I’ve only dated girls. Like I could be bi, couldn’t I? I mean, I don’t think I am. But it’s nice, isn’t it?” George flashed him a smile, wondering just for a moment, if Matty had been fixating on their Saturday morning conversation in the same way his had.

“Yeah.” Matty nodded, swallowing hard. “My mum’s not-... she’s not homophobic at all. Like she’d be totally fine, she’d just want me to be happy. But.  _ But _ . She’s not… it’s not… it’s not the kind of thing anyone in my family really mentions, you know? I mean, I’ve not had a girlfriend in years, but no one’s said anything about it. I guess that’s alright, I guess I don’t really want them to be all up in my face about it, I just. I don’t know. I am lucky to have the family I do, it’s just. Something else.”

And that something else just was Matty’s horrible gut-wrenching worry that his family’s acceptance wouldn’t quite extend to the matter of his gender.

“Something else?” George glanced across at Matty, lowering his voice a little.

Matty gave a nod in response, pulling his gaze away, out towards the window, to the evening sky, as the last rays of sunlight shone down on the world. It was a beautiful moment, just pulled apart at the seams: so very delicate, and so desperately fragile. George couldn’t help but see Matty in it. Whereas Matty, Matty only saw weakness: the worst version of himself, the person he’d ended up forced to be, despite all he liked to think otherwise. Yet George cared so much for that person regardless.

“I’ll listen if you want me to.” George offered, words almost seeming to diffuse out into the silence. “About anything. You know. Whenever.”

“Mmm…” Matty gave a nod, hiding himself away in a cloud of smoke.

“Not now, though?” George watched Matty carefully, pulling what he could out of the silence.

Matty gave a nod: slight, subtle, but so very definitely there.

“That’s fine.” George assured him, moving closer almost instinctively. “Anything else you want to talk about instead?”

Matty shook his head, finishing his cigarette all too quickly, and stubbing it out into the ashtray George had set down onto the windowsill. “I don’t want to talk right now. I’m tired, and I don’t want to think.”

“I’ll take you home if you want?” George offered; suddenly all the concern in the world lit up in his eyes like car headlights.

Matty shook his head definitively. “No. I want to stay with you.” If he was sure of anything, it was that. “You make me feel better.” 

The words escaped Matty before he could quite think about them, sitting himself down on the edge of George’s bed, and looking up at him with wide, desperate eyes: reminiscent of the person George had seen back at Gemma’s party, and less like the Matty he’d come to know over the past week.

George shot him a hopeful kind of smile. “Do you want to watch a movie or something then?” Matty nodded across at him, leaving George to stub his cigarette out into the ashtray. He thought for a moment, before he decided just to throw the box of cigarettes back across at Matty. He looked an awful lot like he just might need them.

Matty watched George for a moment, as he messed with his laptop, opening Netflix, and setting it out on the end of his bed. As many times as he had been in this kind of mindset before, this was never how it ended. He’d never met a boy with his pleading, desperate, lonely eyes, to have him sit him down with a box of cigarettes and a movie, to not ask any explanation of him, and just to stay with him if he needed him to. That was the kind of look that got Matty into bed under far more familiar circumstances. And truthfully, a part of him had wanted that from George.

But George wasn’t the kind of boy to care so little about him just to fuck it all away. George wasn’t stupid like Matty. George didn’t think that might work. Matty found himself just so very glad that George was the way he was, and not the way Matty had hoped he might have been. As Matty found that he trusted George with the world, and this tall boy with the messy hair, sat in bed beside him, was just the very boy he’d let get away with anything. 

He’d let him break him, like he’d thought he would. He’d let him tear him into pieces, he’d let him spread those out for the whole world to see. He’d let him tear him down, into the person he needed him to be. He’d give up his whole heart to George, and for nothing but some kind words and a smile in return.

Matty was just so very grateful, and George, George was just so very special. He wasn’t the boy Matty had thought him to be, but was instead, so,  _ so _ , much more.

As the sky grew dark, and the late afternoon became late evening, Matty still found himself sat almost far too close to George, perhaps just centimetres away from the point that it would become something - something more, something real.

Matty craved a drink, a smoke of something stronger, something to fill the hole down in his chest, that his heart had been ripped right out of, and presented out in front of him, open to George, in an honest kind of truth. It ached. As much as it filled him up inside, as warm and alive as he felt, it ached - the truth and honesty of it all, as they were wrapped up in their own little world.

As Matty sat there, beside George, with what he might have wished to be all of the love in the world, he knew that it wasn’t real. That George didn’t, couldn’t, and wouldn’t love him in the way he wanted him to, or perhaps at this point, needed him to. He was instead, locked up in his own pipe dream, with what seemed like very little hope of  escape.

Matty’s consciousness all but escaped his body entirely as the film they had been sort of vaguely half watching faded off into the background. He found himself lost up in the pictures on George’s walls, in the lives of the people within them. He looked across at them, and let himself wonder if any of these people had ever loved George like he did. With everything he had all at once, like a storm, like a whirlwind, like despite everything he knew was right, despite everything he’d thought to make sense of, despite the person he thought he’d once been.

He had everything. George did. All of him.

And he didn’t even know it. Perhaps that was just what hurt the most.

“Matty…” George’s voice was gentle and almost tentative, like the first flash of light out into the darkness, following Matty’s eyes out across onto the many photographs taped to his walls.

“Yeah?” Matty forced himself back into reality, back into the moment, back towards George with just about all of the attention he could muster.

“What’s on your mind?” George cut right to it this time around. “There’s something.” He eyed Matty carefully. “I don’t mean to push you, but-”

“Yeah…” Matty let out a sigh, wondering if there was perhaps just any hope for him articulating his complicated stupid feelings into sensible logical sentences. “Quite a bit.”

“I know.” George told him, watching him hesitantly, with the desperate hope that Matty might just offer everything up for him, and that he wouldn’t have to dare to pull it all out of him. “You’re looking at those pictures again.”

“Yeah.” Matty gave a nod, daring to glance back across to the wall, taking in a sigh as he got to his feet, perhaps under the pretence of making his way over to the window, but instead stopped short besides a certain few photos: the ones that seemed to be something else.

They’d been hidden away a little, not particularly visible from the rest of the room, as they were half blocked by the clutter on George’s desk, but as Matty stood beside them, they stood out against the rest of the room with a stark, almost uncomfortable kind of contrast.

George knew what Matty was looking at. There was no question about that. He was well enough aware of what was there, and well enough aware of what it meant, and the questions Matty might ask. Those were, of course, questions that George, perhaps wasn’t quite over the moon to be inclined to answer. Still, George would, as this was Matty, after all - Matty would had told him the world.

He’d been waiting for Matty to ask him directly: to kickstart the conversation himself, but as time went on it became apparent that Matty stood there frozen, almost in another world, his eyes never once leaving the photographs, taped almost so innocently to the wall. In the end, George got to his feet, following Matty across the room, and taking his place beside him, and together, they just looked at the photos for a good few moments, and George caught a certain look in Matty’s eyes that seemed to change the whole world.

It was something desperate. Pained, almost. Something that sparked off a whole other world. Something that worried George. Matty looked in pieces, more than he’d ever been before.

And George just didn’t know what to think.

“Matty…” He began, desperate to find just what he could say.

“These…” Matty cut him off, gesturing vaguely at the photographs on the wall. “They’re…”

“Yeah. I know, why do you have pictures with your ex-girlfriends on your bedroom wall? It doesn’t quite make sense, but… the whole photos thing, is just… it’s memories. I mean, just because I don’t love them anymore, didn’t mean that I never loved them at the time, that those relationships didn’t affect me and my life as a whole. They’re… memories.” George turned to Matty slowly, hoping somehow that whatever could be going through Matty’s mind make soon make itself clear.

“They’re beautiful.” Matty choked out, his throat growing dry. “All of them. So beautiful.” George didn’t quite know whether to say thank you or not, or whether he should take anything Matty said on the verge of tears as any form of compliment. “Like the girls you see at parties. Like the girls with everything in the world.”

George didn’t know what to say to that at all.

Matty swallowed his own words. Matty swallowed his own heart too. And the desperate want that he could be one of those girls, that he could be like that, beautiful, with long flowing curly hair, with those carefree smiles, with everything in the world, with the embodiment of the colour gold entwined throughout their lives.

It wasn’t that they were George’s ex-girlfriends. It wasn’t that he was jealous. Well, he was. He just wasn’t jealous that they had been with George, he was just jealous of who they were.

Because very suddenly, Matty found himself looking at these beautiful girls that George had once loved, and knew deep in his heart, more than he’d known anything ever, that he yearned to be like them. Not even to be up on George’s wall like that, not to be loved as they were, but to be loved as they will continue to be, to be one of those girls he saw at parties sometimes, with the world in their hands. 

Matty got a very certain feeling. And just for a moment, he saw himself, not the self he’d seen in the mirror, but the person Gemma had shown him last Friday night, and for just a fraction of a moment, he could just about picture that version of himself up there - happy.

So very desperately, more than anything else, Matty just wanted to be happy. Matty just wanted to be himself, and he wondered just for a moment, if that had somehow turned out to be one of those girls he’d always adored.

Matty looked up at George, his world crumbling to pieces all around him, his stomach turned over onto its side, his heart falling through his chest and down into the pit of nothingness below. And he knew for the life of him, that he hadn’t the slightest clue of what to say. Because it wasn’t about George, it wasn’t about the girls, it was about him. It was about slowly uncovering the mess inside of his head, and hidden away deep in his chest.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” George watched him with concern, finding the look in Matty’s eyes unavoidable, yet just so very much unexplainable.

Matty did the only thing he could, and shook his head.

“No?” George’s eyes widened, suddenly feeling rather out of his depth entirely.

“I need…” Matty choked out, tears just seconds from spilling from his eyes. “I need a… I need… I need to go… I just-”

“That’s alright.” George assured him, fighting the knot of worry in his chest that told him otherwise. “Do you want me to take you home?”

Matty shook his head. “No… I just… I need the fresh air… I… I promise. Look, I promise, it’s nothing to do with you, or anything, I just… something… there’s this mess going on in my head and it’s… fuck, I don’t know if it’s got better or worse.”

Matty stood there for a moment and waited for George to insist that he stayed and sat down and talked about it. But he never did. 

“Get home safe, alright.” George offered him a tentative kind of hopeful smile. “Promise me you’ll look after yourself? Don’t go home and drink yourself to death.”

“I won’t.” Matty shook his head: somehow certain that not even all the alcohol in the world could fix him this time. “Promise.”

It was now, beyond fixing, irreversible, and smeared like a great red mark across his heart, because there he was, with everything falling into place, his heart right into gear, but his head so very far behind.

Matty managed so much as a smile in George’s direction, before he darted out of his room and down the stairs, doing his best to creep out of the front door without attracting the attention of George’s mum, which was easily the last thing he needed at that moment in time.

He thought it pretty pathetic, but the very moment Matty made it out onto the street, he took a great sigh of relief and had a little cry. More than a little cry. It had at first been a little cry, but within the span of thirty seconds, Matty was full on bawling as he hurried out of a cul-de-sac, desperately clutching his phone in his hand.

He didn’t want it to hurt. But it did. All over. It was a horrible kind of realisation that had torn him right in two, and had perhaps gone as far as to make Matty wish that he’d never come to such a conclusion at all. As for just a moment there, he wished he could have been nothing at all - an indefinable mess who loved nothing more than to have a good cry and a guilty wank, who was just so very terrified about the fact that he looked good in makeup, and that not just that, he felt like himself.

Matty wished that this was just simple jealousy, that this was just about George - about those ex-girlfriends, as ex- _ girlfriends _ and not just as girls. That this was about George’s sexuality, about Matty’s feelings for him, and not just so much more about Matty’s feelings regarding himself.

Instead, however, Matty was left out by the side of a road at half nine that night, split in half by the sudden jarring realisation about those girls he watched at parties. The girls that had the world. He didn’t just yearn to have what they had. He yearned to  _ be _ them. And deep down, in perhaps the most crucial respect, he was.

-

“Matty-” Gemma had hardly the chance to pick up the phone, let alone speak, before it all came hurtling out of Matty, as he found himself sat down on a bench in the park, trying his very best not to cry.

“Gemma, I’m-...” It had all been so easy in his head, everything so certain and definitive that it might as well have sliced him right in two, but when it came to Gemma, and physically pushing the words out of his mouth, his insides just seemed to turn to jelly.

“What?” She inquired, growing curious amidst the silence, listening only to Matty’s shaky, uneven intake of breath, and figuring, only from that, that he had to be crying, or at least on the verge of tears. “What’s wrong, Matty?”

Matty struggled with just quite putting that into words. Logically, there was nothing wrong. There was nothing  _ wrong _ with him at all. He’d figured it out. Finally. This was what had been going on all this time. But it wasn’t simple;, it wasn’t a comfortable kind of truth. It was jarring and uncomfortable to deal with. But it was there. And it wasn’t going away.

“What’s happened?” Gemma opted for a different approach; she was more than well versed in the matter of extracting certain truths from Matty. They were always the ones he was so much less than inclined to give, but at the very same time, they were the ones he needed to talk about more than anything else.

“George.” Matty choked out, finding that George was the most tangible thing amidst all of this mess.

“What’s happened with George?” She continued to ask, unable to stop her mind from concocting its own ideas about things: about everything that possibly could have left Matty in his current state.

“I was with George.” Matty attempted to steady his breathing a little. “At his house. We were in his room, and we were… talking.” Matty stopped himself, suddenly overcome with a great feeling of sickness: branching out across his chest from the very pit of his stomach.

“ _ Talking _ ?” Gemma raised her eyebrows. As much as she didn’t want to assume that her best friend was lying to her, she knew Matty more than well enough, and well, she certainly wasn’t stupid. “Just talking?”

“Yeah.” Matty nodded, hating the part of him that desperately wished for something more, that wished George to be the person he’d expected - the person that would break him, the person that was just undeniably bad for him. Matty couldn’t stop himself wanting that.

“At George’s house?” Gemma continued to inquire, finding herself not entirely sure as to when Matty and George had become quite that close. She was aware of the fact that they’d spent time at her party together; she’d orchestrated the whole thing really - distracting George’s friends, and hoping that he just might step outside in search for them.

“Yeah. We…” Matty struggled to find what he could possibly deem to be the right word to use. “We’re friends.” Whatever friends meant. Whatever they were. Regardless of what Matty so desperately wanted them to be.

“And what happened?” Gemma urged him to continue, noticing an improvement in Matty’s tone: gradually growing calmer as she’d focused the conversation onto George and not what had happened. 

It was then that she knew that although George was involved, it was not something directly linked to him. And really, a part of that worried her, because lovestruck, heartbroken Matty was something she was more than well-acquainted with and certainly knew how to deal with. She couldn’t, however, begin to imagine just what else had set Matty off into this mess.

“I don’t  _ know _ .” Matty choked out, and really it was the truth, because he wasn’t for the life of him sure as to just how he’d arrived here, out of seemingly nothing at all. Out of an evening with George, out of a few old photographs, out of a few cigarettes, out of a few stupid hopes for something more than just conversation.

“Well… what is it?” Gemma didn’t really want to insist that Matty addressed it quite so directly, but she couldn’t help but see little hope in any other option available to her.

“I…” Matty swallowed hard. As much as the idea terrified him, he  _ had _ to tell her; she’d help him make sense of things, and that was something he desperately needed, sat out in the cold, with the night closing in around him. 

Really, more than that, he needed to go home, to the safety of his room, but he just couldn’t deal with this. He couldn’t deal with himself under the concern in his mother’s eyes, under the confusion in his father’s, and all as his brother might desperately try to will something out of him. Truthfully, the idea of going home that moment terrified him so much more than he could even imagine.

“He has these photos on his wall.” Matty found himself beginning in the only place that he could think to. “George.” He clarified, wishing so very desperately that he wasn’t already on his last cigarette. That part of him wanted nothing more than to run right back to George’s, where it was warm, and they could sit in bed for hours and smoke until nothing felt real anymore. But that wasn’t what Matty needed.

It was that evening that Matty truly found himself able to make the distinction between what he wanted and what he needed. As what he really desired was just to drop this all and go back to George’s: to bury everything in smoke and fumes, to sit and stare at the small flecks of gold in George’s eyes, to let his worst thoughts run rampant around his head. Perhaps even to cherish in them, to cherish in the warm, happy feeling they spread throughout his body. A feeling he was desperate for that evening, but still, not something he  _ needed _ .

What Matty  _ needed _ , however, was to talk to Gemma. Not specifically Gemma, but she really was his best bet. To tell her the truth, about everything, all that was going on up in his head - to just come out with it. And to deal with it, the best he could that very evening, and not just leave it to fester and break his head down into a million different pieces.

“And these photos…” Matty continued, his heart beginning to hammer away inside his chest. “They’re of him and these girls. His ex-girlfriends. And it’s not even that, because I thought- no, fuck, I wish it was that. I wish I was just… I wish it was just about him having girlfriends, because that’s not even… that’s irrelevant. Fucking hell, that’s just… I… these girls. They’re… beautiful. And I… they’re these girls, these  _ girls _ . Fucking…  _ girls.  _ Girls. I just-...  _ girls _ .”

“Girls…” Gemma repeated rather tentatively, so very conscious of the fact that Matty just might have broken. “Yeah?”

“Gemma… I…” Matty knew that there was no way around it; he just struggled to figure as to how it could all hurt so much even as it made so much sense.

“Yeah?” She continued, her voice the same kind of gentle and accepting as George’s had been before.

“Fuck… I’m… I think… I’m… I think I’m a fucking…  _ girl _ … Gem…” 

The moment the words left Matty’s body, it was almost as if everything in the world had split itself right in two. And Matty was left there, so very terrified, and without even the slightest clue as to how he might deal with the aftermath.

“Matty…” Gemma began, her voice soft and curious. Admittedly, although this had definitely seemed a probable outcome, it wasn’t something she’d been  _ expecting _ , especially not now, especially not this out of nowhere. That, of course, wasn’t the issue. The problem, instead, lay in the fact that she found herself without even the slightest idea of what kind of advice she could offer.

“Yeah.” Matty swallowed hard. “I’m a girl. It just… clicked you know? Like… I looked at those photos and I felt jealous, but I wasn't jealous of those girls because they had George, I was jealous because… they were… girls… and they were beautiful… and so  _ happy _ . Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.  _ Fuck _ . And I desperately just… that… I- I wish that could be me. Happy like that.”

“Matty… yeah? Where are you?” Gemma resorted to doing perhaps the only thing she could. “Can you come over?- Fuck, I…” She stopped herself, composing herself the best she could. “Are you even… do you even want me to call you Matty anymore… or?”

“Fuck, Gem, I don’t know… I… but… yeah… I’m not far.” Matty choked out, deciding that they could talk it out and deal with this all at Gemma’s, or at the very least, they could ignore it completely as long as possible in the hopes that it might just disappear. Either sounded like a great option to Matty.

“Alright, get there safe.” Gemma added, her tone sounding awfully maternal. “Matty… wait… I… so do you want me to call you ‘she’?”

The silence that followed was the kind of overbearing that seemed to slice Matty’s entire world into two. But it was what followed it that which really had the most formidable effect upon the two of them.

“Yeah. Please.” She nodded, wishing so very desperately for a cigarette.

-

Matty made it to Gemma’s house within ten minutes, finding that the silence that had surrounded her head served to be just the loudest sound. As much as she desperately didn’t want to talk about things - not properly at least, she found that on the journey there, she’d almost yearned for it: for the familiar look in Gemma’s eyes, and the fact that the question of acceptance hadn’t even been raised even once. It was just a given. Like the fact that Gemma was just the best friend she could have ever asked for.

Amidst all that, Matty still couldn’t stop herself from fixating on the guilt that remained locked up inside her. As much as Gemma had needed to know about her gender, she also needed to know about Ryan. About what had happened that night, and about how every day it seemed to consume a larger part of Matty’s heart. It perhaps wasn’t just so much about Ryan himself, who had turned out to mean so very little to Gemma in the grand scheme of things, but was instead about the lying: about how she’d kept it from her, about how that more than anything else, Gemma just deserved to know, especially with all she’d done for Matty.

Perhaps in an ideal world, Matty would have sat her down and told her the truth, perhaps even the very moment she’d gotten inside. But perhaps in an ideal world, Matty wouldn’t have been in the kind of position to have slept with Ryan in the first place.

Instead, they milled around in silence for a good half an hour. It wasn’t, however, an uncomfortable silence, just perhaps one that was necessary. They both needed to think, let everything run back and forth around their heads - to let the most sense possible be extracted from the matter, or something like that. Really though, Matty spent a good twenty minutes of that half an hour curled up on the edge of Gemma’s sofa with a mug of tea in one hand, and a cigarette in the other, worrying rampantly, about everything and anything, perhaps even as if she’d been paid to do so.

It was indeed Matty that broke the silence in the end, placing her empty mug of tea down onto the coffee table before them, and turning to address Gemma with a rather odd look set upon her face - perplexed, almost.

“You know?” She began, immediately catching Gemma’s attention. “I guess this makes me straight, doesn’t it?”

Gemma’s eyes grew wide, wondering how in the great plethora of things there were to talk about, this had come to be the most pressing matter on Matty’s mind. Then again, this was Matty, after all, and she would have been stupid to expect anything else.

Gemma nodded in agreement. “I guess it does.”

“Weird that, isn’t it?” Matty commented, as if this was all so very astonishingly trivial, and affected her so very little at all. Gemma, of course, knew that wasn’t the case, but she just wasn’t quite yet ready to stop Matty’s mind from entertaining such a possibility.

“Yeah, it is, isn’t it?” Gemma let a smile creep onto her face. “Never thought you’d be quite the raging heterosexual.”

“Fuck off.” Matty rolled her eyes, letting out a groan as she thought perhaps far too seriously about attempting to bury herself amidst Gemma’s sofa cushions.

Gemma smirked. “God… you goddamn  _ heterosexual _ -”

“I’m still… I mean… I’m still  _ queer _ though. I’m straight, but I’m… I’m… like… trans… I guess…” Matty toyed with it all aloud, the words seeming to tumble straight from her heart, leaving her brain to hurriedly catch up.

“Yeah. I guess.” Gemma nodded, catching Matty’s eyes, and daring herself to imagine if she was really in any mood to talk about it. “So… we should probably talk about that.”

“Not now.” Matty insisted, hiding her face behind her hands. “Please.” Her voice was quick to turn rather desperate. “Tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Alright.” Gemma nodded, gathering that Matty had probably had more than enough to deal with in one day. “Are you staying tonight?” She asked, suspecting that she might be, as Matty hardly looked in much of a state to go home and deal with her family.

“Yeah.” She nodded, flashing Gemma a quick smile - one that could never hope to convey just how thankful she was for everything, and at the same time, so very guilty about all she kept secret.

Matty was a bad friend. She saw no doubt in that. And there had to be no denying that Gemma deserved so much better than her, but in that moment, that night, and the morning that would follow, Matty needed her more than she ever had in the world.

As above all, Matty was selfish, but so very scared. And perhaps that was okay, perhaps just for tonight, as there just had to be something off with her if she had been nothing but at ease with this all.

-

It was Gemma that woke Matty up the following morning: bursting into the spare room with not only a mug of tea but breakfast in bed, all laid out neatly on a tray. She couldn’t help but feel like Matty deserved it.

Matty watched her lazily through half open eyes as she made her way into the room, setting the tray down at the end of the bed, and closing the door behind her, only glancing briefly across at Matty, before she made her way over to the window: pushing it open a little way and filling the room with a slightly unpleasantly chilly morning breeze.

Matty pulled the duvet closer around herself as she forced herself to sit up. She couldn’t help but dread the morning, and indeed the reality of it all: the conversations they were bound to have, and the words she’d have to say. But for the moment, for the time being, Matty found herself just more than content to sit down in bed and eat what had the potential to be the most emotionally draining breakfast of her life.

She’d half expected Gemma to force a proper explanation out of her the very moment she was conscious - meeting with her a list of questions and assumptions that Matty hadn’t the slightest clue about. That didn’t happen, however. Instead, Gemma sat down at the end of the bed, watched Matty carefully for a moment, but then turned her attention to focus much more on the few slices of toast she’d brought up from the kitchen.

Matty thought that she wasn’t hungry. But really, she just felt sick. Not even physically so, just, she was in a mess. A state - fraying at the seams and torn to shreds, making the best out of whatever she had left. Instead of saying something to Gemma, or even anything at all, she leaned forward and reached for her cup of tea, sipping it slowly, even though it was far too hot to drink.

The silence spanned on for a few minutes more, and was in fact, broken not by any form of conversation between the two of them, but from the rather abrupt vibration of Matty’s phone against the bedside table. Instinctively, she set the mug of tea down and reached for it.

“Fuck.” Matty couldn’t stop herself: the word slipped through her lips entirely involuntarily as she read over the most prominent of the many messages she’d received. She hated more than anything, that like everything, it seemed, it just wasn’t going away.

“What?” Gemma looked up, eyeing Matty with a certain curiosity.

“George.” Matty offered up in the form of explanation, finding that oddly enough, George had seemed to become her answer for everything and anything.

Gemma raised her eyebrows. “What’s he done?”

“Messaged me.” Matty supplied, like that was enough to cease all confusion running amok up in Gemma’s mind. “About last night.” She eventually thought to clarify. “I kind of left… in a mess… in a hurry. He just wants to know if I’m alright.”

“He’s good for you.” Gemma commented, the words spilling from her lips without even a moment’s thought; it was truly genuine, something she knew throughout herself entirely.

“Mmm?” Matty glanced across at Gemma with an odd kind of look in her eyes: wondering just what exactly Gemma had meant by that, and just where exactly it had come from.

“Yeah.” Gemma nodded. “He cares. He’s a sweetheart, really. I think you might have been right about him - at least a little bit.”

Matty decided that none of that mattered very much anymore and instead set herself to sending George a response. Despite the fact that she really did figure that she wasn’t exactly just ‘alright’, she sent George a message telling him just that. Mostly as not to worry him, and secondly because she’d just about rather end her own life than actually talk to him about this. After all, she was still very much in two minds about talking to Gemma about it too.

Gemma watched as Matty set her phone back down onto the nightstand, unable to quite return to her breakfast in favour of the slightly troubled look set deeply into Matty’s eyes - as if it was permanent, so very much there to stay. That worried Gemma, and really, it had to.

“You’re not alright. There was no point in him asking. You told him you are, though, didn’t you?” Gemma thought there was little point in asking Matty that herself, as really, she was already so very well aware of the answer.

Matty nodded, holding her lip tightly between her teeth. 

“You don’t want him to know, do you?” Gemma’s words came out rather suddenly, like a breathy, half astonished realisation. Matty met her with a look: dark, heavy eyes that said it all - she was right. “You can’t just  _ keep _ it from-”

“I’ll tell him eventually.” Matty insisted, although, she really didn’t have the slightest idea as to how much truth that actually did hold. “Just not… not now. We’ve not even properly talked about things yet.”

“And do you want to?” Gemma inquired, choosing her words so very carefully. “Now?”

“I think it’s less about whether I want to, and more about whether I  _ should _ . And I should, shouldn’t I?” Matty let out a sigh, brushing her hair back out of her face. “I should.” She repeated, before Gemma could even respond.

“Okay.” Gemma took a deep breath, hoping that Matty had intended that to mean that she could be as honest as she needed to be without causing any sort of fight between the two of them, because really that was just the last thing they needed that morning. There was no doubt about that.

“So, what are you going to do about telling people?” Gemma found that to be her first port of call, as it had already been stationed on her mind since the matter of George had made its way into the conversation.

“I don’t know.” Matty told her rather frankly. A small, pathetic kind of self-deprecating kind of smile found its way onto her lips. “I really don’t know, like about anything.”

“That’s okay.” Gemma assured her, taking a sip of her tea as she watched Matty think, giving her a moment to make sense of just whatever it could possibly be that was going on inside her head.

“I mean, I’ve thought about gender like… a  _ lot _ . That was kind of unavoidable. But I’ve never… really… I never really thought it would be like this. But it is. And that’s… like… that’s just…  _ that _ . But it’s not that simple at all, it’s… it’s giving me a headache, really.” Matty admitted, stretching her legs out across the bed. “So I don’t know. I could do with some advice really.”

“I’ll try my best, but… I mean, I’ve never been in your situation. I’ve never had to deal with any kind of coming out.” Gemma thought for a moment, wondering if there was really anything of value she could offer. “So, I kind of feel like I can’t give you the best advice.”

“I don’t want advice from some kind of coming out queer guru with like an encyclopedia of every little gender term on hand.” Matty snapped, raising her voice to an extent that Gemma hadn’t quite expected. “I just want advice from my best friend.” She let out a sigh, looking across at Gemma with a horribly lost kind of look set into her eyes. It was heartbreaking, honestly.

“I think you should come out to some people soon.” Gemma hesitated for a brief moment before she thought fuck it, and just said what it was that lay on her mind. “Like Amber and Marika. They should obviously know, and you  _ know _ , they’re not going to be at all judgemental or treat you any differently, apart from ways you might want to be treated differently.” Gemma stopped herself for a moment. “And George. Because he cares about you. I can see that. And you think the world of him.”

“What if he hates me?” Matty found the words slipping her lips before they’d even crossed her mind.

“It’s unlikely.” Gemma wasn’t going to flat out tell her that it wouldn’t happen, because as certain as she was, she just didn’t know George awfully well at all. “Why would he do that?”

“Because he’ll think it’s weird.” Matty offered, hating the way this all seemed to be pulling her apart into a million pieces.

“Why would he think that?” Gemma leaned forward, wondering how Matty could possibly put any kind of substance behind that.

“Because it is.” Matty couldn’t stop herself before the words just came out. Hesitantly, she let her eyes flicker upwards to meet Gemma’s. And the room fell silent.

Gemma got up from the edge of the bed and came around to Matty’s side, sitting herself down beside her with a horribly concerned kind of look in her eyes. 

“It’s not.” Gemma insisted, grabbing Matty’s wrist as she spoke, as if to drill it into her that way.

“It’s not  _ bad _ , it… it can’t be helped… it just  _ is _ . But it’s… different… it’s odd… it’s unusual… it’s strange… it’s weird.” Matty chose her words so very carefully this time around.

“It shouldn’t be. And you should never let yourself believe that.” Gemma lowered her voice slightly, finding herself more troubled by the words escaping Matty’s mouth than she’d ever anticipated. As here, she was - her best friend, coming to think the worst things about such a core part of herself: something that just  _ was _ , and that was that.

“I’m worried about what he’ll think.” Matty admitted, being a little more honest this time around.

“That he’ll think it’s weird?” Gemma figured, watching Matty with a slow kind of tentative look in her eyes. Matty gave a nod. “And why would he think that? What did he say when you told him you liked guys?”

“Nothing.” Matty admitted, tearing herself back to that moment. “Nothing at all. But I never really  _ told _ him. I just… told him about…  this guy that I’d been with. Like it was nothing. Like I really believed it was. I was just a bit stoned, really. But… he… you’re right.” Matty shook her head, taking a moment before hiding her face away behind her hands. “He’s going to be accepting. He’s going to be nice about it, because he’s George and he just is. But I’m still scared. Terrified even.”

“Why?” Gemma stopped her, allowing Matty to really consider it for a minute.

“I don’t know.” Was the only conclusion Matty could come to. “I don’t know.” She repeated. “I don’t know.”

Gemma didn’t push it, giving Matty the space to add anything more if it came to her, but instead, turned to her breakfast for a few minutes. It was as five minutes had passed, and the silence began to cave around over them once more, that Gemma turned to Matty and posed another question.

“So, I know you don’t have any ideas about being called something different, but do you want to be? Even if you don’t know what yet?” Gemma asked, taking care to word her questions the best she could.

“I don’t-” Matty stopped herself, allowing herself to really think for a moment. “I don’t  _ think _ so. I think… I think somehow Matty is fine. I mean… it’s a  _ boy’s _ name, but it’s  _ my _ name. And names are just… words… just sounds really. I think Matty is fine, just not… like… Matthew.” She looked down at herself contemplatively. “I’m not a Matthew.”

Gemma nodded in agreement. “You’re so not a Matthew.”

Matty even managed a smile. “I’ll tell Amber and Marika soon. In the next few days. Hopefully. Maybe.” 

It was then that Matty remembered the promise she’d made to George, about how she’d tell Gemma about Ryan within in the next few days, and how they sat together, a week later, and Gemma remained just as oblivious as she’d ever been. And how, that just wasn’t fair. Not at all.

And then, Matty did something incredibly stupid. She looked up and met Gemma’s gaze, and then before she could quite get a hold upon herself, she parted her lips, and the truth came tumbling out.

“I slept with Ryan.”

And Gemma’s eyes grew so impossibly wide.

And Matty’s heart plummeted right to the bottom of her chest, because she knew then, through and through, that she’d fucked it all up.

-

Again, if Matty had been anything reminiscent of clever at all, she would have took herself back home, after far too long, to sit alone in her room and mope around for days. To ignore fleeting concerned glances from everyone around her, and to sit there, just so very determined to put everything back together.

But Matty didn’t do that at all. In fact, she didn’t even consider it, as very few thoughts had crossed her mind through the twenty minutes that had passed between slamming Gemma’s front door behind her, storming out into the street, and ending up on George’s front porch, finger hovering anxiously over the doorbell.

She was well aware that it was a stupid idea. And that George’s was really the worst place she could have ended up, especially with the events of last night, and tears not just welling in her eyes, but fully streaming down her face. She was a mess, but really, she just didn’t know what else to do with herself. She simply hoped that George could offer her the same kind of comforting kindness that he had before, even in their slightly uncomfortable circumstances, even with the mess that Matty had made of it all.

By the time Matty did finally bring herself to ring the doorbell, barely ten seconds passed before the door opened and she practically flung herself into George’s chest, gripping onto him as if for dear life. Needless to say, George was just that little bit startled.

“Matty…” His eyes grew wide, his brain taking a moment to caught up to the fact that he’d opened his front door, and suddenly Matty was clinging so very tightly to him, face buried into his chest. He found that he didn’t quite know what to say, and instead just closed the door behind her.

“I told her.” Matty let out a sigh, daring to pull herself away from George, just for a moment, but just long enough to allow George to catch sight of her tearstained face. And that was just exactly the kind of attention that Matty didn’t want, but still, the kind of attention that she couldn’t avoid. 

“Gemma.” She clarified, watching as George’s eyes fixated upon hers: glazing over with something she couldn’t quite explain. “I told her about Ryan. And everything’s… everything’s so  _ fucked _ .”

“I’m sorry.” George pulled Matty back into his chest, reckoning that the comfort of the gesture was something she needed right now.

“She hates me.” Matty let out a choked sigh, words fading against George’s chest, but Matty found herself more than happy to lose them that way. Perhaps even to lose herself too.

“She doesn’t  _ hate _ you.” George did his best to assure her, unsure as to what kind of truth that could even hold, but he was just trying his best.

Matty was more than ready to argue otherwise, to argue until the end of time, to dig herself perpetually deeper and deeper into this great big hole she’d made for herself, just to the point where she couldn’t even glimpse the sun anymore.

However, she didn’t quite make it that far. Instead, the two found themselves interrupted by the sudden sound of footsteps through the hallway, and a confused, expectant face looking between the two of them.

“Um…” He glanced between the two of them, sliding a hesitant remark almost unwillingly through his lips.

George pulled away, looking over his shoulder to face John, who’d appeared behind them. “Can we have a minute?” He thought it best not to explain Matty’s entire life story to John, who had wandered into the hallway simply out of curiosity, wondering as to just what could have captured George’s attention in such a manner.

“Uhh… yeah…” John nodded, taking another glance at Matty, staring her down almost as if he was somehow transfixed, like he didn’t know what he could quite make of her at all.“We were wondering where you’d got to.” 

John focused on Matty as he spoke - there was something oddly captivating about her, as she stood there in George’s hallway with red cheeks, messy brown curls, the chipped remains of black polish on her nails, and a horribly lost kind of look in her eyes. She seemed as if she was just a whole new kind of something that he just couldn’t quite figure out.

“Yeah, well, it’s not like I’ve wandered off into the jungle and gotten myself killed, have I?” George rolled his eyes, unable to stop himself from growing impatient with the uncomfortably insistent look in his friend’s eyes. “I’ve just gone out to answer the door, and now Matty’s turned up on my doorstep crying his fucking eyes out, so I’ve kind of got something I need to deal with.”

Matty swallowed hard, unable to stop herself from focusing on the word ‘his’, and how George had used it, how it had been so casual, how George just hadn’t the slightest clue, and how despite that it bothered her. It didn’t quite  _ hurt _ her, it didn’t send her into sobbing mess - really she’d gotten there already - still, it got under her skin. It left a mark: an impression - something she felt might last, something that she felt just wouldn’t quite go away.

“Yeah… sorry… I…” John turned away from George and offered Matty a small kind of apologetic smile. “Yeah, we’ll be in the living room, whenever you’re done.”

George watched as John made his way back down the hallway, into the living room, and firmly closed the door behind him. Matty watched George, holding her breath, as she attempted to make sense of everything going on around them.

“You’re busy.” She managed to fill in the gaps for herself. “Your- your friends are over and- you- fucking hell, you don’t need to deal with me, I can-”

“ _ No _ , Matty.” George told her rather firmly, closing his fingers around her wrist, as if he feared that she might slip out the door otherwise. It was a gesture that would have turned Matty’s insides to mush, that was of course, if they weren’t already in such a state as it was.

“No,  _ George _ .” Matty shook her head, attempting to pull away from him, but finding that George only tightened his grip on her in response, and then, that  _ did _ begin to do something to Matty’s insides. “I’m- I’m- I can go somewhere else, go talk to somebody else.” That was, of course, a lie; Matty had no place else to go.

“Don’t.” George met her with a desperate kind of pleading look in his eyes, one that Matty thought was much more characteristic of herself. “Please. Talk to me. I wouldn’t feel right letting you leave like this, you know, in such a state.”

“I wouldn’t feel right bothering you like this. Interrupting whatever you were doing with your friends.” Matty insisted, despite the warm, inviting look in George’s eyes that had more than certainly already won her over.

“We’re not really doing anything.” George told her. It was, of course, a lie. But in George’s defense, the mindlessly idle conversation and video games they’d been playing meant nothing in comparison to Matty, literally tumbling into his arms, tears running down her face.

“Come on.” George finally loosened his grip on Matty’s wrist. “Let’s go into the kitchen, I’ll make you a cup of tea and you can talk to me about it. Sound good?”

“Yeah.” Matty let out a sigh; it didn’t sound very good at all, but if she was being honest with herself, it was the best option she’d got.

Matty was perhaps just overly aware of George’s friends in the room next to them, as she sat at the kitchen table, sipping her mug of tea, as George sat adjacent to her, lost somewhat up in the silence, as more than anything, he just didn’t want to push Matty to say anything she didn’t want to.

She didn’t want to. But Matty let herself abuse that just a little. Buying her a little time to sort her head out, to try and pull off the pretense that despite her tears, everything really was fine. Just for a moment, she did let herself consider talking to George about her gender. She knew it was a stupid idea - well not necessarily stupid, just stupid for her to even properly consider. And really, it just wasn’t happening, especially not with George’s friends, just through the wall.

Part of her did however wonder if George  _ deserved _ to know. And then what deserved really did mean. And whether she was under any kind of obligation to talk to anyone about anything at all. She decided that she wasn’t. She came to conclude that she could waste away the rest of her life locked away inside her own head - she just didn’t think that would be a very good idea at all.

So eventually, Matty placed her mug of tea down onto the coffee table and looked George in the eye. “So I fucked things up.”

“Doesn’t mean you can’t fix things again.” George watched her carefully.

Matty shrugged. “She hates me, George. Like. I just… I just  _ said _ it. Like no fucking warning, no nothing, just like… yeah… so… Ryan, he fucked me. We fucked. Just… I guess just like it was nothing.” She pulled her gaze down to the floor. “And it’s not nothing. Not at all.”

“It’s not the end of the world though, either.” George thought it best to remind her.

“It’s just… She looked at me like… like she properly despised me.” Matty bit her lip, hating having to bring herself back to that moment. “Even in our worst fights, she’s never looked at me like that before. And then… she just started yelling. She didn’t even ask why, like she knew why, because I’m a fucking mess that needs to fix everything with sex, like a fucking nymphomaniac, or something. Because I’m a fucking shit person, and a horrible friend. She just yelled at me, you know? She lost it and I don’t blame her, because I fucked that one up for her, and she screamed a lot of horrible things at me, and they hurt yeah, but really, they were true.”

“Matty-” George found that he didn’t quite know what to say to that.

“It’s just… I really need her right now. And it’s my own fault. I’ve fucked this up for myself. We didn’t even properly talk about everything, about everything important before… I just… I couldn’t take it anymore, I just spat it out at her. And I said things back. Because that’s what you do. Arguments… they’re two sided and that. And I said some stupid horrible shit that I didn’t mean, and it’s just fucked-... because I… told her I needed her right now. I made her feel guilty about the fact that I’m fucked up, and then she… told me that I don’t need her, I just want her there for me, and she’s under no obligation to do or say anything for me. And it’s true. She was right. But it hurt. I think maybe it hurt  _ because _ I knew it was true.”

“I’m sorry.” George told her, knowing that it wasn’t what she needed to hear, but still, all that she could say.

“Fuck.” Matty cursed, her voice escaping her at perhaps a much louder volume than she’d intended it to.

“Matty, look.” George leaned forward, setting his eyes upon her. “Don’t let yourself think these things. They aren’t true. You’re not a shit person, and you’re not a horrible friend, and don’t be an idiot, there’s a difference between being a nymphomaniac and shagging your best friend’s ex-boyfriend.”

“Fuck off, George.” Matty didn’t quite know what she was saying until the words left her lips.

“Matty-” George raised his voice to compensate, his eyes growing wide as he struggled to handle the situation: suddenly seeing a new side of Matty that he was just anything but prepared for.

“What the fuck do you even know?” Matty raised her voice further still, getting up out of her chair and facing George properly. “Like, for fuck’s sake, George, I get that you’re trying to make me feel better and shit, but like… you don’t fucking  _ know _ , do you? You’ve known me what? Like a fucking week, for fuck’s sake. I  _ am _ a shit person and a terrible friend. And all I ever fucking do is keep secrets from everyone.”

“Matty-” George couldn’t even argue back before Matty cut in again.

“Look, at me, fucking look at me now, I’m fucking yelling at you for basically no fucking reason, and why? Because I’m a shit person and a terrible  _ fucking  _ fr-” 

Matty was cut off as the kitchen door was flung open, and despite George’s explicit instructions not to, John appeared between the two of them once more.

“John, for fuck’s-” George let out a sigh, wishing so very desperately that he could just deal with any part of this at all.

“I’m not going to leave you to scream at each other.” John shot George back a rather stern glare - something George really hadn’t thought to expect. 

First of all, he turned to Matty, the same kind of curious look in his eyes. “Is he being a dickhead to you? He does that sometimes.” John offered Matty a friendly smile, hoping it might help the situation slightly.

“ _ Thanks _ .” George rolled his eyes, leaning back in his chair, and just leaving John to deal with Matty, seeing as he seemed to have every idea about as to how he might go about doing so.

“No.” Matty sighed, sheepishly glancing across at George. “I’m sorry.” She whispered, holding George’s gaze with caution, as if she was just so very afraid that it might break. “ _ I’m _ being the dickhead.” She offered up to John.

“You’re not.” George shook his head, getting to his feet and joining Matty at the other side of the room. “Stop saying that. Stop thinking that.” He met Matty with a pleading kind of look: desperation in its purest form, and really quite the sight for John to observe, with little to no knowledge as to just what the fuck was actually going on.

“George-” Matty tried to argue otherwise, but this time, George decided that he would be the one that put a stop to it.

“No,  _ please _ , Matty, come on.” He watched Matty carefully for just a moment. “I think… I think we need to stop talking about this. It’s not getting us anywhere, and I really don’t want to argue with you. Let’s just… just go out and have a smoke or something?”

Matty shook her head, turning back to John. “No. I’m- I’m interrupting, whatever you’re doing, and I… I should go. Like really, like… you said it yourself, George, we’re not fucking getting anywhere, and I still feel shit, and I just- I’ll go somewhere else. It’s  _ fine _ .”

George shook his head; there was no way in hell that he was going to let that happen. “Where would you go?” He asked, wondering just where Matty would, as she certainly couldn’t just go back to Gemma’s.

Matty stopped for a moment, and suddenly, the whole room was so very well aware of the truth to it all. She simply shrugged, and hoped for a world in which that could just possibly be enough.

“I’m not leaving you on your own.” George’s tone was stern, and before Matty could think about arguing otherwise, George’s fingers were curling tightly back around her wrist. “I’m  _ not _ .”

John watched the two of them for a moment. It had hardly taken him long to suspect that there was  _ something _ up between the two of them. After all, he’d just about gathered that the very moment he’d walked into the hallway and glimpsed Matty sobbing into George’s chest, and their arms wrapped around each other so tightly, in a manner that spoke of something more than just compassion and kindness. 

He wasn’t stupid enough to confront them about it, or even make reference to it - now really didn’t seem like the time. Instead, he just let them be, whatever they were, and however it was going. And as George’s friend, he just wanted George to be happy again, and it was so very immediately obvious that it wasn’t happening unless Matty was too.

“Yeah, come on, you can come sit around with us.” John met Matty with a smile, watching the way Matty’s eyes flickered slightly in response.

“What about Ross and Adam-” George began to worry.

“Fuck Ross and Adam.” John’s response was instant, as he pushed open the kitchen door, leading the way into the living room.

“Dear Jesus, not  _ both _ of them. You’re not fucking all of my friends-” George’s tone was comical, but still he couldn’t stop himself from grimacing at the prospect.

“ _ George _ , please.” John raised his eyebrows, glancing back at George in disbelief.

Matty snorted. George looked entirely too pleased with himself.

-

At some point that afternoon, Matty ended up falling asleep on George. No one was really quite sure how it had happened, but come quarter past five, George found himself sat at the end of the sofa, with Matty’s head in his lap, curls falling freely over her face. And really, there was no denying that she was beautiful. Especially like that.

Still, George found that he didn’t really quite know what to do with himself, as he definitely didn’t have the heart to wake Matty up, so instead, he just sat as still as he possibly could, despite of course, the smile that he just couldn’t help but slip his lips.

Ross was the first to notice, taking his eyes off John for the first time in about two hours, and glancing over in George’s direction. He looked between George and Matty for a moment, before nudging John and gesturing across the room to the two of them.

“Is he asleep?” John lowered his voice, meeting George’s gaze and gesturing down at Matty, as she lay, soundly sleeping: oblivious.

“Yeah.” George smiled, somewhat like he was just entirely at peace with the world. It was rather odd really. John, however, sat there and watched them for a moment, unable to stop himself from being reminded about himself and Ross. Still, however, he thought it best not to make any sort of assumptions.

Adam, however, didn’t seem to be quite on the same page at all. “So, is he your boyfriend?” He looked from his phone all too casually, meeting George with a look like it meant nothing at all.

“No…” George trailed off, suddenly feeling his insides beginning to crumble. 

“Oh.” Adam looked rather a lot like that he left him so very confused.

“Yeah… we’re…  _ friends _ .” George thought it best to clarify, glancing down at Matty with the same kind of loving look in his eyes.

“Alright.” Ross decided that George’s slightly questionably comfortable relationship with Matty was just none of his business. Even if Matty had been practically sat in his lap for the past few hours, and they’d done nothing but smile at each other like they were each other’s whole world.

“And I’m straight.” George added, you know, just for good measure.

“Yeah…” Ross stretched his arms out behind him: unable to help himself. “I said that once though, didn’t I?” He met George with a smirk.

“Oh fuck off.” George rolled his eyes, shaking his head.

John grinned a little. “Leave him alone, alright?” He turned to face Ross and Adam, casting them a look to clarify that he really did mean it.

“Yeah, okay.” Ross agreed, turning back to his boyfriend, meeting him with a smile.

“He’s gay, though, isn’t he?” Adam gestured towards Matty.

“ _ Adam _ .” John looked across at him - something vaguely reminiscent of outraged. “How would you know? Sexuality’s… not… to do with what you look or act like-”

“He is.” George interjected, deciding to save Adam, and the rest of them a full rant on stereotyping and gender roles.

“There you go.” Adam finished, turning back to his phone, deciding that it was best if he kept out of the rest of the conversation.

“Can you just like…” George trailed off, glancing down at Matty, and placing his hand gently on her back. “Shut up? He’s sleeping, you know?”

“It’s twenty past five-” Ross argued, finding however that he wasn’t quite able to finish his sentence.

“He’s  _ sleeping _ .” George repeated, finding himself suddenly so very protective over Matty.

“I’m not going to sit here in silence just because your future boyfriend’s fallen asleep in your lap-”

“Ross, Matty’s not my- fucking… future boyfriend… or anything you think. Alright? He’s never going to be that, because, guess what? I don’t like men. That’s that. Matty’s my friend, but never… Matty’s never going to be my  _ boyfriend _ .” George stopped for a moment. “And that’s that. Just how it is, alright?”

George let out a sigh, pulling his hand away from Matty’s back, his fingers instead, entwining themselves up in her hair.

“Not my boyfriend.” He repeated, unable to take his eyes off of her.

-


	5. matty's main talents include looking good in lipstick and making bad decisions

Matty didn’t even bother sneaking back inside early that Sunday morning. She hadn’t been home since Friday and she knew there was no avoiding that. To top it off, she was more than well aware of the questioning stares she’d receive that moment she did walk in - after all, she’d seen them all at least a thousand times before. By now, at the very least, she’d come to expect it.

Truthfully, she hadn’t wanted to leave George’s at all. Even with everything unspoken between them, she’d felt safe there, almost as if no one could really find and or bother her there. Like as if the time she spent up in George’s room was time she spent being truly untouchable, where things like friendships and expectations and gender didn’t matter at all anymore. Of course, that was hardly even close to being true, but Matty just liked to let herself believe that it was.

It was barely eight that morning by the time Matty arrived home. She’d ended up sneaking out of George’s house half an hour earlier, finding that she’d wanted to avoid any kind of confrontation, and opted instead to leave George sleeping soundly on the sofa. He’d looked beautiful like that - peace and calm - a state that Matty didn’t even dare to believe that she had the right to wake him from. 

She’d at least scribbled a note for him, leaving it silently on the coffee table, but it was simple and brief, and just something she’d spent entirely too long looking at in a state of indecision: unable to figure out as to whether she should add kisses on the end of or not. She went for just one in the end, because fuck it, and Matty had never been one for making sensible decisions.

The very moment she stepped back inside that morning, Matty did half expect her mum to jump out at her with a full list of several hundred questions that she’d prepared over the course of the weekend. Nothing like that happened, however, and she just didn’t go as far as to ponder being disappointed.

Instead, she milled around the kitchen for a little while: fixing herself a cup of tea, and taking a moment to stare at her rather gormless reflection in the vaguely reflective aluminum body of the kettle. Her hair was almost tragically messy and it really did seem like half of it had fallen out of the bun she’d previously tied it back into. However, it really was nothing in comparison to the great looming dark circles under her eyes, and what almost seemed to be a permanent redness to her cheeks. 

Really, Matty did wonder if she’d ever cried so much in a forty eight hour period. It had been quite the weekend, and it really didn’t help to know that it just wasn’t even over yet, as she couldn’t quite comprehend what else the world could possibly have left to throw at her.

Part of her felt as if it had all been so very pointless, well, perhaps not pointless but fruitless, as if it had all just wound up to nothing at all. It seemed that over the past two days she’d gone through anything and everything she’d never imagined possible, but here she stood, back in her kitchen again, like Friday morning all over again. She wondered if she might have found some comfort in that, but it was just far from the case; as whatever she felt or knew, she would always stand inside these walls as her mother’s son, as a brother, as the same desperately confused and unhappy person she’d been a few days prior. And Matty didn’t see any real escape from that.

Matty did wonder if she’d even gotten any better through this all. Sure, she had answers, but everything was still shit. She was still unhappy with herself and her life, and now, she’d gone and ruined her friendship with Gemma, and consequently her friendships with Amber and Marika too. And that was all just so much to desperately try not to think about as she poured hot water from the kettle into the mug that she’d set down on the side.

It was as she did this that the house began to stir, and tentative, curious footsteps appeared behind her, coming to a stop in the doorway, peeking through the door and into the room, at Matty, and at quite the sight she made for eight on a Sunday morning.

Matty caught her brother’s reflection in the dusty aluminium of the kettle: her heart stopping her chest as she spun around to face him. Louis met her with a wary kind of sympathetic smile that Matty couldn’t quite place the intent behind. She could only wonder just what he could possibly be doing awake this early on a Sunday. 

She did also take a moment to really assess just why she was also awake so early on a Sunday, and really, she wished she wasn’t: she wished she was still back at George’s, with her head in his lap, to worry about what that could mean so much later, and instead just to smoke and talk away the whole day, to lose herself in his arms: all morning and all afternoon. But she’d had to go home eventually. Everything came down to eventuality, after all.

Matty turned back to her mug of tea, stirring it much more than was entirely necessary, as she let the silence crumble around them, waiting for Louis to ask her just where she’d been. She wasn’t stupid enough to think that he hadn’t been curious - worried, even. Yet somehow, despite how much she did care for her brother, she found that it just didn’t much matter to her at all. She thought briefly about how that made her a bad sister, but found herself unable to focus anywhere near as much on the word ‘bad’ than she did on the word ‘sister’.

“Are you okay?” Louis didn’t begin anywhere near Matty had expected him to. Truthfully, he’d been waiting for Matty to begin, even to yell at him, or to tell him to leave her alone, as really, he felt so awfully out of his depth without even the slightest clue to what it was that was really going on in Matty’s life. She didn’t talk about things, not like she should do, and Louis was so well aware of that.

Matty thought for a moment: finding herself rather taken aback by the genuine concern evident in his voice. She set her mug of tea down on the counter beside her, and found the courage to properly face her brother, still with very little idea of just what it was that she was possibly supposed to say.

“Not really, no.” Matty let out a sigh, watching as her words really began to sink in. She wondered if she should have lied to him in the hopes that it would take it off his mind, because maybe that was just the sort of way you were supposed to act around your thirteen year old brother. But Matty knew Louis, and she knew that Louis was smart, and that he’d already figured out the half of it.

“Do you want to talk about why?” Louis was perhaps twice as tentative as he had been before, taking a careful step towards Matty, who did her best to meet him with a reassuring kind of smile. Despite everything else, he was still her brother, after all.

“Not really, no.” She gave way to a smile, watching as Louis gave a vague sort of nod in response. “Well, really… if I’m being  _ entirely _ honest. I kind of want to, sort of maybe like fifty-fifty. There are a lot of reasons why I should, but I’m scared, and yeah okay, there’s maybe a lot I need to get off my chest, because like… I’ve been… I’ve not been home in two days, and that’s… a…  _ thing _ , and yeah, I’m eighteen now, but still… that’s a thing… and things have happened, and everything is messing with my head, and really I’d  _ love _ to talk about it, especially to someone completely unbiased and uninvolved in everything.”

“Then do…?” Louis watched her curiously, unsure as to just what had posed itself as the problem here.

Matty met him with a smile. “Not really the kind of things I should be talking to my little brother about, though. Not the kind of things you should have to think about for a start, and then stuff mum would kill me for like talking to you about. It’s… very adult… I guess.”

“How can it be  _ very  _ adult?” Louis scoffed, his eyebrows raised. “You turned eighteen like six months ago. You’re  _ barely _ adult yourself.”

Matty snorted. “Yeah. You’re right. Maybe that’s why I’m struggling with it - too adult for me.”

Louis shrugged, unable to avoid being irritated by the fact that Matty, of all people, had decided that he was too immature for this. “So what is it like? All this  _ adult _ stuff? Like… what… sex and stuff?” 

He looked up at Matty, a hint of anxiety hidden amidst his gaze. Louis did know that there wasn’t a chance in hell that Matty would actually mention anything to their mum about this, but still, he was unsure as to quite how she’d react. And a part of him was just so desperate to prove that he wasn’t nearly so immature at all.

Matty rolled her eyes, leaning back against the kitchen wall and meeting her brother with a sigh. “Yeah, like sex and stuff.” Because really, he wasn’t entirely wrong.

“So what?” Louis played with the idea of just how far he could push it. “You like… had sex with someone… and that’s a problem somehow… because… you didn’t get someone  _ pregnant _ , did you?” His eyes grew horribly wide at the sudden notion.

Matty choked on thin air, wondering if Louis had somehow forgotten that it was still just eight in the morning - far too early for all of this - and also that she hadn’t wanted to talk about it in the first place. Then, there was the matter that his suggestion was just entirely preposterous, perhaps even to the point where Matty could have considered it comical.

“Trust me.” Matty picked up her mug of tea, using it more as just something to do with her hands in the place of anything else. “That’s not going to happen.”

Louis met her with an odd kind of look, like he’d somehow managed to pick up on the true meaning behind Matty’s remark, like he was somehow still more intuitive than Matty could have ever accounted for.

“Alright.” He gave a nod, thinking for a moment. “So you had sex with someone and you regret it or something?”

“Yeah.” Matty let out a sigh. “Something like that.”

“Why?” Louis continued to ask. “Why did you regret it? Was it  _ bad _ ?”

“ _ Louis _ .” Matty’s eyes grew wide, grimacing at the sudden realisation that she was genuinely just talking to her younger brother about sex. “I’m not- I… I’m not talking about it, alright?”

“Alright…” Louis raised his eyebrows: evidently disappointed. “You should talk to someone, though. You’re not going to talk to mum or dad, or me, so you’re… you should talk to one of your friends. Maybe even the one you had sex with.”

“Trust me, Louis, h-” Matty’s words grew dry in her mouth, her throat closing in around the word ‘he’ as she came to a very sudden realisation. “Uhh… not my friend.” She finished, deciding to avoid the use of pronouns entirely.

“Just talk to someone.” Louis met her with a hopeful kind of smile. “I want you to be happy again. Like you used to be. You’ve been so off lately, and it’s been… it’s been horrible, really.”

“I’m sorry, fu-... no… I… I’m sorry.” Matty choked out, groaning in disbelief. “I’m terrible. Honestly terrible. I just… you deserve better than me.”

“It’s not your fault.” Louis told her rather plainly, finding that his concern for Matty only seemed to grow.

“Yeah. Alright.” Matty decided just to agree: for simplicity’s sake.

“Talk to someone though, please.” Louis looked up at her with all the concern and trust in the world. And Matty looked down at her little brother, at the person who still thought the world of her, who hadn’t heard of a single real wrong she’d done, and felt so very horribly guilty.

The truth just made her feel sick.

And she’d never wanted to have to lie to her brother, but here she was, at eight fifteen that morning, with a dark, physical  _ sickness _ to her eyes, and the words slipping her lips before she could stop herself.

“Course. Promise you. I need to, don’t I?”

And she met Louis with a smile: just wide and realistic enough for him to believe.

Although the truth made her feel sick, it quickly became apparent that the alternative was just so much worse. As she stood there that Sunday morning, very much lost without any sort of sense for just who the fuck she was anymore.

For there was a great part of herself that she’d lost somewhere amidst this all: abandoned on someone’s doorstep, or up in someone’s sheets, left in a secret she’d hidden away in the darkness, or a promise broken and smashed out into a million pieces. She’d lost it out in the golden lights, in the lazy afternoons, and the smiles she’d never deserved. She’d lost it in beautiful girls at parties, and in watching them for hours, she’d lost everything too.

-

Matty was always sort of vaguely aware of the fact that what she was doing just wasn’t the best idea in any sort of regard, but still, it didn’t at all prevent her from doing it: from moping around her room all day, from avoiding conversation, and even eye contact with anyone and everyone. She’d even left her phone abandoned at the other side of her room - simply letting the texts and missed calls pile up. As blocking herself off from all of reality just had to be one of her most treasured bad habits.

She let herself wonder what it would take this time around. What it would take to break her out of it all. Especially as it didn’t much seem like Gemma was going to come and break into her house just to talk to her this time around. And maybe Matty was just so very intrigued to see how far she could take this - just what people could let her get away with before it was all deemed too much, and everything all went wrong. She wanted to let herself fuck it all up this time, perhaps just for the power in that, and the freedom that ultimately came with it.

She reckoned in the end she’d have to find something to fix herself, to fix it - this hole that she’d made inside of herself; she’d need something to replace what she’d lost. And Matty had made so many promises over the course of her life, but ultimately, it really did seem like none of them did actually mean a thing. 

In the end, she found herself doing what she did best. She found herself looking at boys. At every single one of them. And thinking the world. Making gods out of men from behind a counter at a simple nine to five. She told herself that it was enough, and she let herself believe it. After all, Matty wasn’t getting anywhere in life as an emotionally fucked up, gender confused, barista with chipped nail polish and eye bags darker than hell itself. And she knew that.

There was perhaps even some comfort in it. In routine. In making cups of coffee. And smiling at every single plain, boring boy that stepped inside. She found safety in that. Like it was a world in which she didn’t really have to exist: not fully, not as herself, just as skin and bones, as fingers and smiles, and the same repeated conversation for hours and hours.

It got to about two p.m. on Thursday before Matty started to seriously wonder if she was depressed. It got to about three p.m. before she started to seriously wonder just what that really did mean. What there was that she could possibly do about it. Especially when all she did seem to do was fuck things up. 

In the end she concluded that it had just been a bad week - nothing less, nothing more, and maybe George had been right - maybe Gemma would speak to her again. And maybe George would too. Maybe that was hope that she could fix everything, even with the mess she’d made of it all.

That hope came in the early evening light, as she finally made it out into the street after her shift had finished. It had been a particularly trying day and she was more than relieved to wash it all away with a cigarette out back, and the peace and time it gave her to think.

Though if Matty had been entirely honest with herself - all she’d done all day was think. Perhaps she was even ready to talk, to do something, to do anything, to make any kind of sense out everything that she could.

She just hadn’t quite expected opportunity to present itself all so soon, as her solitude soon faded away to the sound of footsteps, and a familiar smile offered through the lowlight.

“Alright if I bum a smoke?” She met Matty with a casual look, as if nothing had happened at all, as if she was entirely separate from all of this mess, which Matty, of course, knew just wasn’t true.

Still, Matty obliged, offering the packet across to her. 

Matty watched as she lit her cigarette, putting it to her lips and inhaling so very deeply before she finally found it within herself to speak: daring to address Matty with the reality of the situation. 

“You know everyone’s worried about you?” 

“Oh fuck off, Amber.” Matty rolled her eyes, not really meaning a word. If she was being just entirely honest with herself she’d never been quite so grateful in life. Just to see someone, someone who wasn’t Gemma or George, or her family, and could look her right in the eye. Matty’d needed that.

“Do you really,  _ honestly _ think that Gemma ever gave one single fuck about Ryan?” Amber’s eyes widened in disbelief as she watched Matty consider the possibility. “ _ Honestly _ ?”

Matty shrugged. It was the best she could do.

“You  _ honestly _ thought that she’d care more about some guy that she fucked about with for a bit, over her  _ best _ friend for like the past five years?” Amber shook her head in disbelief. “Not to sound harsh or anything, but you really are an idiot, Matty.”

“ _ Thanks _ .” Matty gritted her teeth. Part of her could have yelled at Amber for that, but more than anything else, she knew that Amber was right.

“She thinks  _ you _ hate her now.” Amber supplied, continuing to explain the situation, regardless of whether Matty really wanted her to or not. “And really I’ve spent the last few days trying to tell her that you don’t. But… I don’t know, do I? You’ve not spoken to anyone since the weekend. I’ve even been round asking people, like everyone you know. And so’s George. He’s worried about you too. He thinks he’s done something as well. You really should talk to him.”

“I don’t hate her. I don’t hate anyone. Well, I do hate some people. I hate Ryan and I hate myself. And I like to think I hate my family sometimes, but I don’t, I just… I feel stuck. I feel stuck with everything. And I’m not ignoring anyone because I hate them. I’m just scared. I think maybe it’d be easier if I just didn’t have to talk to people. If I didn’t have to explain, because I’ll  _ have _ to explain, and Amber, fuck, I’m- I’m  _ scared _ .”

“We’re all scared. We’re human. Fear is who we are.” Amber added, hiding her words away amidst a cloud of smoke.

“Doesn’t matter though, does it? I don’t give a fuck if you think it’s normal that I’m fucked up in the head and terrified, and desperate to isolate myself away from everyone and everything. I still  _ am _ , and I-... I still fucked up, and people are still… I… I’ve dug myself a fucking hole, Amber, that’s what I’ve fucking done, and honestly, it might just be easier to stay at the bottom.”

“Still doesn’t mean you should.” Amber watched Matty carefully for a moment. “And I really don’t think getting out is anywhere near as hard as you think. It’s… it’s getting started that’s the hardest part, and then, it’s never nearly as bad as you think.”

Matty shrugged: unsure as to just how much of what Amber had to say she really did believe.

“It’s just… there’s this  _ thing _ . This unavoidable, fucking  _ thing _ , that’s fucked me up beyond belief. And it’s like… like I  _ have _ to tell people, because I can’t deal with it if I don’t, but then I also can’t deal with telling people in the first place. Maybe I just want people to know. To just  _ know _ . To just make it obvious. But I’m not brave enough to do that. Not properly at least.” Matty let out a sigh, meeting Amber with a desperate kind of pleading look in her eyes. “I wish you knew. I think you’d know what to say.”

“Matty… I…” Amber hesitated: wondering if she should really continue, as after all, she had been specifically told not to. “I think I do.”

“What?” Matty’s eyes grew impossibly wide.

“Gemma… she… didn’t mean to… but she just, you know… let it slip. She knows she shouldn’t have- you should… it should be you that gets to tell people about things like that, but… she didn’t mean to… and it’s… fine. It’s  _ so _ fine. It’s okay. It’s… I’m glad. I’m glad you figured it out.”

“Oh…” Matty’s words grew dry in her throat. “I’m not. Not glad, I mean. I think being confused was easier to deal with. Easier to deal with than spending nights up in tears because my mum called me her son. Because that’s what I am in her eyes. That’s what I always was. Maybe that’s what I always will be, unless I  _ talk _ about things. And I  _ can’t _ , because I’m… I’m fucking  _ scared _ … and I’m fucking… fuck, Amber, I still don’t even know if this is really  _ right _ , I just. I don’t even know if it feels better than before. I don’t know if I’m ever even going to be happy. I don’t even know if it’s gender. I think maybe it’s just me. I think it’s just everything. And I don’t know what to do with myself at all. I’ll never be anyone’s  _ daughter _ , I’ll never be anyone’s  _ sister _ , I’ll never be anyone’s  _ girlfriend _ , I-”

“Matty, fuck, I-”

“And I don’t think I can go home again. I can’t deal with… I can’t deal with them. Because I can’t  _ tell _ them, I just-... fuck, what am I even supposed to  _ do _ , I-” Matty finished her cigarette, putting it out with the heel of her shoe. “Fuck.” She looked down at it longingly: wishing for another, wishing to stay smoking in the back alley forever, at for at least the whole night through. But she of course knew that could never be a good idea.

“Come to Gem’s.” Amber offered tentatively, meeting Matty with a pleading look in her eyes. “Please. She wants to see you again. She wants to talk to you. Marika does too.”

“Only if she’ll let me get pissed.” Matty let out a sigh. “Like fuck am I dealing with this sober.”

“Because getting drunk’s going to make it any easier?” Amber raised her eyebrows in disbelief.

“For the moment, yeah.” Matty concluded, forever with so little concern for the future. “Now, are we going or what? It’s fucking freezing out here?”

-

Despite the almost nonchalance to her demeanour, Matty was practically shitting herself. It had taken them no longer than fifteen minutes to make it to Gemma’s, and Matty had almost wanted it to span out for at least half an hour - just to avoid the inevitable, to avoid the look in her eyes, and to avoid the conversation. The things they  _ had _ to talk about. Because there was so much more to it than vague confessions made in the back alley of a coffeeshop, and there was no avoiding that.

Matty met Gemma’s eyes the very moment she made it inside, finding that time really did seem to freeze around them, even if only just for a few moments. 

“Matty…” Gemma pushed past Amber almost at a run towards Matty, as if she’d just never been expecting to see her again. She did, however come to halt in front of her - it was an awfully abrupt gesture - as if she’d intended to pull her into a hug, but now she just wasn’t so sure. She didn’t know if she could do that anymore.

“I…” Matty let out a sigh, letting her gaze fall to the floor as she very immediately felt all eyes on her. She felt as if there was some sort of expectation that she might say something. Something that fixed it all, but Matty had nothing on her mind at all. She just desperately wanted things to go back to normal. Whatever normal was anymore. She just wanted to be happy, and she was pretty sure she had been - once.

“Fuck.” Gemma came to a very sudden conclusion, deciding that maybe everything else just didn’t matter much at all, and pulled Matty into a hug regardless. “I’m sorry.” She whispered into her shoulder, leaving Matty to wonder just what she could really need to apologise for.

“I fucked-” Matty began, but Gemma just didn’t quite let her get that far.

“You didn’t fuck anything up.” Gemma’s response was rather conclusive, as she met Matty with a stern look, finally pulling away from her.

Matty let a small smile grace her lips. “That… yeah… I fucked Ryan, though, didn’t I?”

“He fucked you.” Gemma added, like it somehow made any difference.

“Yeah…” Matty trailed off. “We fucked.”

“Matty, come on, don’t look so glum, I’m sure as fuck not letting some random guy’s dick ruin our friendship.” Gemma rolled her eyes rather nonchalantly, offering Matty a smile before she turned away, wandering off into the kitchen, leaving the other three girls to follow her.

“That was… somehow easier than I expected.” Marika couldn’t help but comment, watching Gemma curiously as she rummaged around through the cupboards.

“Yeah.” Matty couldn’t help but agree. “But she’s… Gem’s right. Okay, so we both got the same dick, but like… neither of us want it again, neither of us fucking  _ like _ him. It wasn’t even  _ good _ sex, like-”

“ _ Exactly _ .” Gemma added from across the room. “I don’t see why that has the right to ruin our friendship. Because honestly, Matty, you really do need looking after sometimes, you just don’t know what to do with yourself, do you?”

Matty perhaps thought about being offended by that, but realistically Gemma was probably just about right.

-

The four girls found themselves up in Gemma’s room just ten minutes later, with red wine in Gemma’s mum’s posh fancy glasses that they never should have touched in a million years, but Gemma had declared this a special occasion and had thought fuck it. They’d spent a good seven of those ten minutes looking around the kitchen in search of some suitably fancy nibbles to go with the wine, but in the end, had found very little more than a bag of croutons and some rich tea biscuits. They’d gone for the biscuits in the end.

“So…” Matty began, opening the pack of biscuits, stretched out across Gemma’s bed. “I’m a girl.” She found herself saying it just because she could, because there was something freeing about that, and she so very desperately needed to feel alive somehow.

“Yeah.” Gemma nodded across at her. “You are.”

“And that’s… that’s okay. It doesn’t feel  _ entirely _ okay. But I think maybe things are starting to get better.” Matty bit her lip, hating the part of her that wondered if she still hadn’t quite figured it all out.

“Because you don’t want to come out to your family?” Amber thought back to their earlier conversation that evening - the one that had taken place outside of the coffeeshop, when everything had come together.

“Not that I don’t  _ want _ to. I just… I don’t think I can.” She let out a nervous kind of laugh, doing her best to cover just what lay beneath it. “I don’t think I can.” She repeated, hating what that really did mean. 

“You don’t  _ have _ to.” Marika watched her carefully for a moment. “You don’t  _ have _ to come out to anyone.”

“Still, I should. Shouldn’t I?” Matty sat up, trying to imagine just what would happen if she sat her parents down and possibly tried to convey this great fucking mess. And what would happen if she walked into Louis’ room one day, and when he asked her what was going on, she actually told him the truth.

“I don’t know.” Marika continued, trying her best to get any sort of grasp on the situation that she could, but truth be told, she didn’t know awfully much about Matty’s parents at all. “That’s up to you to decide, isn’t it?”

Matty just wished she was really in the position to make any kind of decision at all. “And then there’s  _ George _ .” She rolled over onto her back and just stared up at the ceiling for a while.

“He’s been asking about you all week.” Amber reminded her. Matty remained silent.

“Yeah. Worried about you.” Marika added, glancing across at Amber, in the hopes that she’d give her something more to say.

Still, Matty remained silent.

“You really should call him.” Gemma came to offer her advice in time, even if she felt it severely underqualified. “Even if you’re not going to come out to him. Just call him to let him know you’re okay. That you don’t hate him.”

“Yeah…” Marika nodded, growing more concerned by the second. “I think he really does think you hate him. And I’ve tried to tell him that’s not true, but it’s not that he doesn’t believe me, it’s just like… like he just can’t convince himself of it.”

“You  _ don’t _ hate him, do you?” Gemma watched Matty carefully, wondering if there was something they’d somehow missed. “Nothing’s  _ happened _ , has-”

“Fuck, no, Gem.” Matty finally broke her silence, but still didn’t quite have it within her to pull her gaze away from the ceiling.

“Good, I don’t even know what I’d say if you  _ did _ hate him-” Amber continued as if this was some sort of great reassurance or comfort, even, but Matty just didn’t see it in that way at all.

“I don’t hate him… fuck… I…” Matty let out a groan. “I think I love him. Maybe even properly.”

“Oh…” Gemma’s eyes grew stupidly wide. “That’s-”

“ _ Fucked _ , yeah.” Matty finished for her. “I know. Like there’s no fucking reason I should be, but I… I just… I don’t know if I can just… face him anymore.”

“Talk to him.” Amber supplied, as if it was all just that easy. “Maybe not even about this, maybe about this. Maybe explain, because he’s George, and he’s the most understanding person I’ve ever met, and you  _ know _ that’s true.”

“What?” Matty pulled herself up rather quickly. “Just… fucking… pop up there like ‘Hey George, how you doing? That’s nice. Hey so, I think I’m in love with you’. Like fuck is that going to work? What would he even  _ say _ -”

“Matty, I really don’t think you’ve quite cracked the idea that there’s really a wrong and right way to tell people things.” Gemma watched her carefully, finding that she was so very conscious of the fact that Matty could snap at just about any minute and then they’d have that to deal with too. “Like, you know when you literally just told me that you and Ryan fucked… like out of nowhere.”

“Yeah, I mean, maybe start… with like… just don’t tell him you’re in  _ love _ with him, or whatever.” Marika thought for a moment, considering as to just whether Matty really  _ was _ in love with George or whether she was just over exaggerating as usual. “Just tell him you have a crush. Or you think he’s cute.”

“Because  _ yeah _ , that’s going to go so fucking well, isn’t it?” Matty was just about ready to scream at them, but opted for a biscuit instead, trying her very best to keep herself composed. “He’s  _ straight _ .”

“And… you’re a girl…?” Gemma just looked at Matty for a moment.

“He doesn’t know that.” Matty reminded her, downing half her glass of wine just to prepare herself for the inevitable response, which was just exactly what Matty  _ didn’t _ want to hear. “Unless you’ve accidentally told him as well.”

“ _ Matty _ .” Gemma let out a sigh, looking up at her almost desperately. It had truly been an accident, after all.

Matty shrugged. “Sorry. I’m not… it’s alright. You haven’t though, have you?” Gemma shook her head.

“You know George  _ will _ accept you-” Amber tried to add in her own advice, but Matty didn’t even have it within herself to let her finish.

“Yeah, because it doesn’t sound dodgy if I just turn up like ‘Hey George. So, I’m a girl. Cool? Thanks. Alright. So you’re straight, yeah? You like girls. By the way I have this massive crush on you. And I’m a girl now.’” Matty sat there for a moment, wondering if she had allowed herself to somewhat base her gender on George. She was pretty sure she hadn’t, but suddenly she just wasn’t quite so sure.

“Maybe don’t… maybe don’t tell him both of those things within the space of ten seconds.” Marika suggested, glancing across at Gemma, as she found herself wondering if they could possibly end up getting anywhere with this at all.

“Or maybe I shouldn’t tell him anything.” Matty concluded, stretching her arms out behind her as she fell back onto Gemma’s bed. “Might be easier like that. I wish it was like that. I wish… I wish I didn’t have these fucking feelings, at all, you know? Because… with Ryan… I just turned up in makeup… I didn’t quite look like a girl, but I didn’t quite look like a guy either, and that was just  _ that _ . And we fucked. And that was easy.”

“So you just want George to fuck you…?” Gemma wasn’t quite managing to keep up.

“No-”

“To be fair.” Gemma continued, unable to stop a smirk from tugging at the corners of her lips. “He’s got to have a big dick though, hasn’t he? With how tall he is. You’d think it’d be in  _ proportion _ , wouldn’t you?”

“ _ Gemma _ .” Amber’s eyes grew wide in disbelief. 

“Come on.” Gemma burst into a grin. “You’ve got to admit it I’ve got a point.”

“Literally don’t, alright?” Matty stumbled to her feet. “I don’t need to think about that, because yeah, I’d quite like to just hop on George’s dick, but as we’ve established, things just aren’t quite that simple. Because I’m… I think… I… I want to be his  _ girlfriend _ .” She paused for a moment. “Or someone’s girlfriend, at least. I want to be… I want… I need… I need someone to love me like this… I need… someone to want me like this. I… just… I’ve got this fucking dick. And I don’t hate my dick. I just hate what it means.”

“You’ve  _ got _ to tell him.” Marika concluded, as Amber sat there just trying to get over Matty’s so nonchalant allusion to riding George’s dick. “About your gender. I think.”

“I don’t think I physically could.” Matty admitted, finding it within herself to sit back down again. This time, ending up curled up next to Gemma on the floor, clinging desperately to her for any kind of emotional support. 

“Then don’t  _ say _ it.” Gemma suggested, thinking for a moment. “Just… turn up… as you feel comfortable, you know, looking like a girl… and… be like… this is me… deal with that.”

As much as Matty did hate to admit it, she did quite like the sound of that. There was, however, the matter of her stomach jumping around inside of her at the mere mention of looking like a girl, of having the courage to be herself properly. She had a clear idea of what that entailed, but she was just so very scared that Gemma wasn’t quite on the same wavelength at all. But then again, was there anything that didn’t scare Matty even just a little bit?

-

“This is me…” Matty repeated the words had lodged in her mind from yesterday evening. She faced herself in the mirror after what had been a somewhat arduous morning and let out a sigh, finding perhaps that for once it was formed somewhat like a sigh of relief.

“Yeah.” Gemma assured her, meeting her reflection in the mirror. “It is.” 

Matty nodded slowly, as if she still wasn’t entirely convinced by it, but was just trying her best. Gemma continued to admire her handiwork as Amber peaked in through the crack left between Gemma’s bedroom door and its frame. Gemma had sent the both of them off downstairs in search of something particularly special, as she’d spent the last half an hour or so doing Matty’s makeup, now for the second time. She couldn’t help but hope that this time around that Matty might just have the courage to keep it on a while longer.

“That’s… yeah…” Matty turned back to her reflection and just stared herself down for a good minute. “Yeah…”

“Uh…” Amber lodged herself awkwardly between the door and the door frame, peering into the room in search of Gemma, but found that had gaze had stopped at Matty along the way and she’d gotten stuck upon her reflection in the mirror. “Fuck… wow…” Her eyes grew wide as she did her best to take in Matty’s appearance from across the room.

Matty blushed a shade of red as vibrant almost as her lipstick. “Hey…” She met Amber’s gaze in the mirror, as if she was just terrified to leave her reflection for even a moment, as if she really did fear that it would all just fade away the very moment she took her eyes off herself.

“You look…  _ amazing _ .” Amber continued to watch Matty in astonishment. Really, she hadn’t reckoned that Gemma was quite that good with makeup at all, or just that Matty looked quite so good with makeup on in the first place.

“T-thank you.” Matty blushed, long dark lashes hugging her cheeks as her eyelids flickered shut, revealing thick black eyeliner wings, as she did all she could to hide herself away from the look of wonder in Amber’s eyes.

“We can’t find them.” Amber finally turned to Gemma, finding herself landing on the point that had brought her upstairs in the first place. “Don’t look at me like that, Gem, we  _ have _ looked. We’ve spent half an hour looking.”

“It’s not like they’ve  _ vanished _ -” Gemma met Amber with an uneasy stare; she didn’t doubt her friend’s ability and competence in finding a pair of shoes that she’d lumped somewhere downstairs, but she suddenly found this resting on a lot. As it was for Matty, after all.

“What?” Matty finally composed herself enough to catch a proper drift of the conversation between Amber and Gemma. “What’s vanished?”

“ _ Nothing _ .” Gemma assured her.

“The shoes.” Amber met her with a smirk, leaving Gemma’s eyes to grow open wide.

“What shoes-”

“Don’t  _ tell _ her about the fucking shoes-” Gemma had so very desperately wanted this all to be a surprise.

“They’re shoes.” Amber supplied, rolling her eyes a little. “And we can’t  _ find _ them anyway. So you’ve probably got rid of them-”

“ _ No _ .” Gemma insisted, as if there was one thing she was certain of - it had to be this. “I’ve got them. I  _ know _ that. I even thought about giving them to Matty, like ever since she first started talking about gender.” She turned across at Matty, who was perhaps growing more confused by the minute. “They’re nice shoes. They’re too big for me though.”

“Oh… um…” Matty didn’t quite know what to think, or as to why Gemma was suddenly so desperate to dump all of her old and oversized items of clothing off onto her. Still, she found herself so incredibly grateful for it, from the pile of clothes Gemma had set out onto her bed, to the shoes that she just might have lost somewhere along the way.

It was just as Gemma was about to give up all hope, however, that Marika made it through the door, a pair of black high heeled boots in hand. Matty’s eyes grew outrageously wide.

“I found them.” She announced, throwing the shoes down onto the carpet in the middle of the room.

Marika grinned across at her girlfriend. “You’re just a shit finder.” She looked entirely too pleased with herself, and Matty might have just laughed, if it wasn’t for the assumption that she’d be able to walk in those shoes at all.

“This was supposed to be a surprise.” Gemma added in Matty’s direction, wandering across towards her and offering her the best kind of comforting smile she could muster.

“Thanks.” Matty let out a sigh, turning back to the pile of clothes Gemma had offered her earlier. “Do you really think me… just… turning up to George’s in a pair of heels and skirt is really… a  _ great _ idea?”

“Well, I mean… it gets the message across.” Gemma grinned, hoping it might give Matty a little confidence boost somehow.

“Yeah.” Matty let out a sigh. “Lipstick does too. I’d feel a bit awkward in a skirt, though, like… I mean… obviously, I have a dick, and that’s… a bit like… your dick’s just hanging out.”

“Well, hopefully, it won’t be.” Gemma eyed her carefully. “Don’t shove your dick into George’s face the first moment you get there, alright?” She didn’t wait for Matty to offer her any kind of response before she began to rummage around through the pile of clothes. “I’m thinking this skirt. But you can just wear jeans if you want, really-”

Matty reached for the skirt. Her eyes widened. “A black leather miniskirt?” She looked up at Gemma.

“A reject from my emo phase.” Gemma provided as explanation, leaving Matty to feel so very honoured that Gemma had honoured her enough to pass on all of her old ‘emo’ clothing onto her.

“And then this top.” She reached for a seemingly ordinary patterned grey t-shirt, pushing it into Matty’s arms before she could argue otherwise. “Tucked into the skirt. And then a jacket probably. Yeah. Your denim jacket’s probably fine, though.” She then turned her attention to the shoes Marika had dumped onto the floor.

“And those too?” Matty raised her eyebrows.

“You don’t have to. I just, I think it’d look good.” Gemma explained, taking just a moment to wonder just what George really was supposed to say when Matty turned up on his doorstep dressed like this, but Matty seemed to be confident in the idea for once, and that was just more than enough for Gemma.

“Yeah. Fuck it. Makes a statement. Doesn’t it?” Matty flashed her a lazy grin and took the clothes into the bathroom.

Gemma, Amber, and Marika had taken to finishing the pack of biscuits from last night as they waited for Matty to return. And really, it felt an awful lot like they’d been sat there for years, but it had hardly been five minutes before Matty tentatively pushed Gemma’s bedroom door open again.

“Fuck…” Gemma’s jaw dropped as she took in Matty’s appearance, and how this had so very overwhelmingly been a fantastic decision.

Amber and Marika turned in unison, both greeting Matty with what seemed to be the exact same facial expression. And really, from what Matty could tell, it was good.

And then she met her own reflection in Gemma’s bedroom mirror, and her heart soared so high up through her chest that she thought she might choke on it.

But that never really happened until she made it to George’s doorstep. 

As suddenly that Friday afternoon, Matty found herself just seconds away from George, just a doorway away from the truth of everything, stood there - skirt, lipstick, heels, and all, and choking, but really not on what she might have liked to in relation to George.

Not that standing out on George’s porch and thinking about his dick had ever been one of Matty’s brightest ideas. Especially not in what she might have called the world’s tightest of skirts. Really, though, Matty didn’t quite know what she should have really felt in relation to the fact that all of Gemma’s clothes seemed to fit her perfectly.

Matty found herself out there for a good ten minutes, focusing momentarily on George’s dick, and then just on George in general, and then perhaps on just what would happen if she happened to end up sucking George’s dick like this. She reckoned she’d make quite the mess considering the lipstick, but then again, blowjobs had never exactly been the most clean of activities. She wasn’t even sure if she could kneel down in this skirt at all.

She then took a moment to mourn the fact that, as probability did seem to state, she wouldn’t end up sucking George’s dick that night, or any night really, or perhaps ever. And maybe she should think about more than just George’s dick, and she should consider George as a person instead.

It was then that the most radical of notions finally struck Matty, and as she stood out there on George’s porch, she began to wonder if it was really so much about George at all, or whether it was just about  _ anyone _ . Because George wasn't the only person with a dick in the world. George wasn’t even the only person with a particularly nice dick. Matty then wondered to herself if she could just go and suck a dick if she so wanted to, right then.

She looked down at herself and let her mind wonder. And then the worst part of her mind started up again - the one that very quickly decided that going out and sucking some guy’s dick was just a much more preferable and easier way to deal with things, as opposed to finally ringing that doorbell and letting George deal with everything.

Because maybe, just maybe one day in the future, George would let Matty suck his dick. But that wasn’t everything. Maybe it was just nothing at all. Maybe it would never even happen, and she couldn’t rest everything on it like that, on the idea that George might love her. As it wasn’t  _ exactly _ about sucking dick, it was just the illusion of love, the idea of someone thinking she was pretty enough to let her do that.

Matty put what her friends might think to the back of her mind, discarded all promises, and stepped off George’s porch, and out into the street. Instead she focused on the part of herself she’d managed to lose over the past few weeks, and as she turned off the end of the street, she set her mind to finding it, trusting her feet to take her just wherever she might need to go.

-

Matty wondered if she just might always end up there in the end. Under neon lights, under every single gaze in the room, and at the seat at the end of the bar. The very same barman gave her the very same questioning look. But this time around, Matty gave him a very different smile. As she suddenly found herself almost sick with confidence: skirt, lipstick, heels, and all.

She knew very well that Gemma would just about kill her if she ever found out that she’d avoided George completely and gone out to the club instead. She didn’t find herself stupid enough to assume that Gemma just wouldn’t. She instead just marked herself down as reckless enough to assume that it just wouldn’t matter. Things with Ryan hadn’t ended out too badly after all.

That evening, however, Matty looked across the room and wished desperately for something just that little bit more meaningful than Ryan. Sure, her intentions had been to end up on her knees by the end of the night, but she wanted there to be meaning behind it, or at the very least, for a guy to call her beautiful and tell her that shade of lipstick looked good on her, even as he came all over it. Needless to say, Matty was just quite the romantic.

There was no way around the fact that she really did look quite the sight, and that perhaps maybe a gay club hadn’t been her best option considering the circumstances, but Matty made her home under the neon lights and with far too many cocktails down her, even coming to take the shifty looks from the barman as compliments. After all, there was just this part of Matty that truly lived to shock people, to keep all eyes on her, to be the center of attention even if for only the worst reasons in the world.

And really, it didn’t take long for someone to catch her eye from across the room, and before she could really even consider putting on any kind of act to attract the guy’s attention, he’d placed himself down in the seat beside her. The barman looked between the two of them with another questioning kind of look. Matty just pouted a little bit, batted her eyelashes and let the guy buy her a drink.

“Charlie.” He introduced himself over a shot of vodka. Matty let a smirk curl over her lips as she caught his eyes, and from what she could make out, under the lights, he was really quite attractive.

“Matty.” She nodded across at him, taking him in for what he was, for more than a guy at a bar, stupid enough to buy her a drink, but all dark eyes, and hair so blonde it couldn’t be natural. He was tall and muscular - not so much as Ryan had been, perhaps not the kind of guy that could pin her down with one hand, which was something Matty really couldn’t help but admit that she was into, but there was something else about him. Perhaps even just a genuine kind of interest to his smile, and maybe that was what she really did need.

“Hard not to look at you, isn’t it?” Charlie began, soft-spoken, but his voice so very low, as if it was cutting into Matty’s gut directly, and just perhaps there was something she liked about that. But then again, Matty had never claimed that her standards had really ever been particularly high.

“Is it?” Matty raised her eyebrows, gazing up at him from under long black lashes.

“I think the whole club’s looking at you.” He admitted, leaning back against the bar, and watching in amusement as Matty glanced out across the room, and as Charlie had expected, caught the gaze of several men along the way. “Do you like that?”

Matty turned back to face him, eyes widening a little, as she struggled to quite decipher just what it could mean. “Yeah.” Her words seemed far more confident than she was, and she really did wonder if Charlie could tell. Part of her seemed to think that he seemed like the type who just might be able to. “I do.”

“Hard not to.” Charlie continued, not giving Matty any indication as to whether he’d believed her or not. “No one really comes into a gay club expecting to see someone in lipstick and a skirt.”

“Gender roles, huh?” Matty rolled her eyes, momentarily holding off on the true nature of her gender, as she took a moment to herself just to weigh up whether she was just more interested in someone accepting her gender and wanting her regardless, or just in Charlie’s dick.

Charlie raised his eyebrows, snorting a little. “Heels too.” He followed Matty’s legs down to the floor. “Can you even walk in those?”

“Hardly.” Matty admitted, giggling a little. She turned back to the barman and ordered another drink. He looked at her just as weirdly. Charlie watched the exchange with wide almost glassy stare; if he was being entirely sure with himself, he just didn’t really know what he was looking at when he looked at Matty, but there definitely seemed to be something about her that he liked - something that had drawn him across the room in the first place.

“And you think you’re still going to be able to walk in those when you’re pissed?” Charlie raised his eyebrows, watching as Matty downed yet another shot. She gave a shrug in response. “You don’t care?” He met her with a questioning look.

“That’s the whole point of getting drunk, isn’t it? So you don’t care anymore.” Matty leaned forward and met Charlie with a tipsy kind of giggly look, and to be fair, by this point, Matty was definitely bordering into properly drunk rather than just very tipsy. “If I gave a shit what would even be the point?”

“It’s good to give a shit about some things though, isn’t it?” Charlie suggested, deciding to put a bit of a halt to the drinking for a while.

Matty shrugged. “Alright, whatever, don’t get all philosophical on me.”

Charlie snorted, finding that whatever it was about Matty, he definitely liked her. “Alright. If you say so. So you don’t give a shit, and you’re here to get drunk and not be able to walk home. To find yourself wandering through the streets barefoot at three in the morning? Classy, that, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Matty gave into a laugh, liquid confidence consuming her whole. “I’m  _ such  _ a classy girl.”

Charlie raised his eyebrows at that one but didn’t quite find it necessary to question it. “So, are you like this sober too?” Part of him wasn’t even sure why he was curious - he just reckoned that he had to put it down to just that  _ something _ there was about Matty.

“I don’t know.” Matty shrugged, coating her every gesture in a grin. “Don’t you want to find out?”

“I don’t think you are.” Charlie made a bold assumption. Matty laughed it off like it was the biggest load of bullshit she’d heard in her life. But, of course, it was true. And really, she did think that they both knew that.

“Mmm?” Her eyes grew wide, laughing too much to overcompensate. “Tell me what you think I’m like, huh?”

“I think you’re…” He trailed off, trying to imagine a sober Matty for a moment. “I think you get nervous.” He smirked. “I think you get all nervous and clammy, with sweaty palms and everything. I think you’re much more average than you like to think you are, at least when you’re drunk. I think when you’re sober, you’re just some idiot who works in Asda or something. You don’t look like this, you don’t laugh like this, you’re just there, no makeup, no skirt, no heels, no statement, no nothing. You’re just… you’re just some  _ guy _ .”

Charlie finished his words with a laugh and downed what remained of his drink.

Matty went red as threw her gaze down to the floor. “Yeah, alright.” She muttered, heart sinking inside of her, as all she’d desperately wanted was for someone to believe in her, to believe in the illusion, to believe she was this beautiful happy girl, with far too much to drink, and far too much to say, but there seemed very little hope of that, or perhaps even hope of anything anymore.

Charlie watched her for a moment, heart pounding as he struggled with the possibility that perhaps he really had gone too far. “Sorry.” He hoped that he could make any kind of recovery out of that. “I just-”

“I work in a coffeeshop, not Asda, by the way.” Matty pulled her gaze back up to meet his, something almost playfully vindictive in her eyes, burning like a fire under the lights - a bright neon flame.

Charlie gave way to a laugh. “Alright, that’s my bad-”

“And I’m a girl, not a guy, by the way.” She finished, dropping her words like they were nothing at all. 

And really, Gemma had been right, Matty had never really been any good with talking to people and really assessing the weight her words held. So she just sat there and sipped her drink, watching as Charlie’s jaw dropped.

“Uhh…” Charlie glanced around almost uncomfortably, and really, despite herself, there was something about that which amused Matty, because despite what he thought of himself, there was no denying that he was attracted to her, and she really just couldn’t help but relish in that.

“Yeah?” Matty smiled back up at him, batting her eyelashes under a sense of falsified innocence.

“This is a  _ gay _ club, right? You know that, right?” Charlie turned back to her with confusion. “And I… isn’t Matty a guy’s name? Are you fucking with me-”

Matty rolled her eyes, hating the sudden sinking feeling in her chest, as Charlie’s words began latching themselves onto her heart like an anchor. “Yeah, Charlie. Isn’t that a girl’s name too? I think I dated a girl named Charlie once. How about that?” 

“That’s-...” Charlie stalled himself for a moment, really just so very unsure about how he might deal with the situation at all. “That’s because Charlie can be short for Charlotte, or like… Charles. So what’s Matty short for? Matthew?”

“It’s not short for anything.” Matty snapped back at him, hating the way her guts seemed to twist themselves into a knot at his use of the name ‘Matthew’. “My name’s Matty.”

“A  _ guy’s _ name-”

“Well, here you go, it’s  _ my _ name, and I’m a girl, so how about you just deal with that?” Matty shook her head, and turned back towards the barman, hitting him with a particularly spiteful smile as she ordered herself another drink, downing it instantly. Charlie watched her, so very wide eyed.

“Wouldn’t really think to go to a gay club if I was a girl though.” Charlie added, eyes fixated on Matty, trying to take her in the best he could, perhaps now just even more confused as to what he was supposed to think of her. 

“Where else I am going to go?” Matty looked up at him so very casually. “Because we all just know so very many straight guys who are going to want to touch my dick.”

Charlie’s words dropped right to the pit of his stomach. “So you’re a girl… with a dick…?”

“Yeah, how about that?” Matty rolled her eyes, almost growing tired of Charlie, or at the very least, just of his conversation. “So  _ fascinating _ , isn’t it? It’s almost like people are more than just what’s between their legs.”

Charlie was very quiet for a good minute. And Matty really did think about ordering another drink, but instead spent the time surveying the club, wondering which guy she’d get to buy one for her.

“I like girls, you know?” Charlie added after a while. “As well. I like girls, and I like dick.” He looked down at Matty once more.

“Great.” Matty added, so very tired of him already. “So are you going to fuck me or not?”

Charlie’s eyes grew wide, and he seemed to choke on thin air. “That’s a bit… blunt.”

Matty grew almost entirely disinterested. “That’s why I came out here. So,  _ Charlie _ , am I wasting my time?”

Charlie paused for a moment, but then, very suddenly, he pulled his lips up into a grin. “No, Matty, I don’t think you are.”

She flashed him a grin and downed one last shot, catching one last disgusted look from the barman, as she let Charlie lead her out of the club, out onto the street, in the cold evening air, shivering out on the pavement as he walked her to his place, and Matty really began to regret not asking Gemma to let her borrow some tights. It was November, after all.

What she didn’t regret, however, was anything else about the situation, was even the amused look in Charlie’s eyes, or the promises she knew she’d broken, and how at the back of her mind, she really knew that Charlie was hardly the best guy she’d ever met. But it worked, and it felt right, and Matty had so very little room up in her head for things like George or Gemma, or even common sense, as finally Charlie lead her up to his flat and closed the door behind them.

-

It took no more than a bottle of red wine from the kitchen, and the sun to fall further over the horizon, coupled with idle conversation and the odd few cigarettes, before Matty found herself once again in a stranger’s bed.

It wasn’t that she’d just  _ forgotten _ her promise, or really everything she knew that told her just how bad of an idea this all was, it was just perhaps that she needed this right now. And that need seemed to outweigh everything else, or perhaps it was just so much easier to let the alcohol soak up her feelings as she stretched her arms out above her head, face up towards the ceiling, as she caught Charlie’s gaze from across the room.

“Not to be disrespectful, but like…” Charlie began, watching her from afar: all pale skin, and flushed pink cheeks, as soft brown curls fell across her face. Matty grew curious and blinked up at him expectantly from under those dark lashes, and Charlie’s stomach really did seem to tie itself into one big knot.

“Mmm?” She thought about sitting up, wondering if he wanted to actually  _ talk _ about things, before they actually had sex, but really, Matty was far too drunk to talk, and far too stupid to tell herself otherwise.

“I’ve never had sex with a girl with a dick before.” He added, as casually as he could. Although, by now, Matty had figured that it made him uncomfortable - at least talking about it so directly at least. She reckoned that he had to be at least decently comfortable with the idea if he was so keen to fuck her.

“Alright yeah. That’s understandable.” Matty bit her lip for a moment, trying not to think about the amount of lipstick she just might be getting on her teeth. “I am… I am just a  _ girl _ , though, you know? Not a ‘girl-with-a-dick’, like I’m some sort of weird branded product. I’m a  _ person _ . I’m a girl.”

“Yeah.” Charlie nodded across the room, running a hand up through his hair. “I know.” He paused for a moment, just watching Matty: the steady rise and fall of her chest as she breathed in and out, and each bit of skin stretched out, and beautiful, looking unreasonably gorgeous as she lay sprawled across his bed.

“I just brought it up because of, well, if we’re going to fuck, that’s going to involve your dick, isn’t it?” He continued, making his way over to the bed, and perching himself down on the end. Matty met him with a nod. “I thought… you’d maybe want the opportunity to  _ talk _ about that… like I don’t, maybe there were some things that made you uncomfortable-”

“Charlie, just shut the fuck up, alright?” Matty sat up then, growing tired of the vague half hearted strands of conversation, and the chill to the room, and the ache of the distance between them. “I want to have sex with you. That’s that. I’ve got a dick. I’m aware of that. You’re aware of that. You know how to have sex with someone with a dick, the whole situation isn’t entirely  _ groundbreaking _ is it, now?”

“Alright.” He turned towards her, pulling his shirt off and discarding it onto the bedroom floor. “Come here then, princess.”

Matty raised her eyebrows. “Oh,  _ of course _ , you only get the nice pet names out when you want something.” There was a teasing, almost playful tone to her voice, however.

“And I do.” Charlie added, pulling Matty into his lap, and running his hands up under her shirt. “I want you.”

Matty rolled her eyes, but kissed him regardless.

It was messy. With far too much and far too little all at the same time, with what at times seemed to be too many limbs for the both of them, and too little space for it all. They met with a clash of teeth and tongues, and the strong taste of wine on their lips, mixed with nicotine, and what else remained from the few cigarettes they’d shared. It had been passionate, but more so desperate, as Charlie did all he could to take away that part of Matty that still smelt like the club, that still smelt like other men - the part that still smelt like George.

And Matty left herself pliable, open, and somehow, at peace, leaving stark lipstick stains against Charlie’s lips, cheek, and in a trail down his neck to the very bottom of his chest. She left that part of herself like a reminder - something she hoped he’d struggled to wipe off, a part of herself that just wouldn’t be gone come the morning.

As much as she did give back, with almost forceful presses of her lips all over his body, and her legs wrapped so tightly around his waist that if she wasn’t so skinny, Charlie might have been worried that he might break. She let herself be used. She let him mould her body down into what he wanted of her, she let him look her deep in the eyes and yet at nothing at all, she let him, because this was how she needed it.

It didn’t  _ hurt _ , but it ached - with arms pinned back against the mattress and legs spread wide open under fingertips that were sure to leave bruises. That, however, was what Matty would call the good kind of ache. Something she’d feel for days, something that wouldn’t just fade away, something to keep her sane throughout everything else, even if just in the form of dark red fingerprints, and one hand on her waist, gripping her so tight that she thought he might never let go.

And Matty didn’t even see something so wrong with that, even as the room began to smell more of sweat than anything else, and Charlie began to make these almost pathetic kind of guttural grunting noises, and she lay there, completely open, completely his, yet completely at peace. She liked it. She liked the way it felt real, the way her heart was beginning to open up again, and as his hips slammed against her thighs for the final time, she caught her first real breath of fresh air in months.

She came gasping for breath, with shaking, bruised thighs, and a warm kind of content dizziness, like she yearned for the spin to the room, like she wanted nothing more than the ride of it all. She lay there, just breathing, breathing like she’d never took breath before, and thought of thrill, thought of the consequences, and thought of the mistake.

But it wasn’t like it had been before; Matty looked back up at Charlie from under those same dark lashes, although slightly damp this time around, and felt entirely limitless. Like they were up in the clouds, like she’d never have to come down, with fireworks going off in her dick, chest, and brain.

She wasn’t quite sure what it had been, but she wanted more, even as Charlie came back from the bathroom, having disposed of the condom, and cleaned himself up a bit. He still looked just as handsome, even as he’d flicked the light on as he’d wandered in, but Matty lay there and wondered if it was so much about looks at all.

“You want to use the bathroom?” He asked her, wondering if Matty had actually so much as moved since she’d came. And truth be told, she wasn’t sure that she had.

Matty gave a shrug, letting her eyelids flutter closed as she sank herself back down into the pillows. “I’m alright.” She assured him.

“Shouldn’t you like wipe your makeup off, or something?” Charlie continued, meeting Matty’s eyes as they flickered open once more. “Isn’t it like really bad for your skin if you don’t?”

Matty snorted, finding it within herself to properly sit up after all. “Do you  _ really _ care about my skin? In all of this, your biggest concern is whether I’m gonna get all spotty or not?”

“No.” He rolled his eyes. “Not my  _ biggest _ , but you should clean yourself up. What’s more important is that you… enjoyed that…” He bit his lip momentarily.

Matty thought for a moment before she did finally respond. “Yeah.” She added, in all honesty. “I did. Like a lot. Like really a lot.”

Charlie met her with a smile. “I did too.”

And they sat there smiling at each other like gormless idiots for a good five minutes before Charlie really did make Matty go and wipe her makeup off, because maybe he was so concerned about her skin after all.

-

In her mind, Matty had seen herself leaving the very moment she’d woken up that following Saturday morning, walking out without a word, or a note, or anything to say for herself. She might have even nicked something to eat from the kitchen on her way out.

But, in her mind, Matty did see a lot of things. Like, getting her mouth on George’s cock, like actually going over to George’s and talking to him that Friday afternoon, like never sleeping with Ryan, like never sleeping with Charlie, like never lying to Gemma, like never breaking another promise. But not quite so many of them did actually happen.

And despite perhaps  _ everything _ she’d thought she’d known, it was six that Monday evening and she found herself curled up Charlie’s sofa, wearing nothing but one of his shirts, which was so very big for her, and a blanket wrapped around her legs.

She found Charlie curled up next to her, scrolling absent mindedly through his phone, and they sat there, oddly peaceful, with the TV on in the background, and the whole town visible out of the window of his flat.

Matty thought about her own phone, about her own friends, about her own life outside of Charlie’s flat, about the person she’d left behind on George’s doorstep that Friday, about the person she might have grown to become if she’d had the guts to follow through with everything Gemma had said. 

She knew, at the back of her mind, that she should have been home by now, and that there was no use in making a routine out of these absent weekends, because she knew Louis worried and understood, and both worried and understood so much more than he let on. And there were her parents too, but she didn’t quite want to think about her mum and dad just twenty minutes after she’d ridden someone guy’s dick on his sofa, up in his flat, all the way at the other side of town.

Although, Charlie wasn’t quite so much of a stranger anymore, as they had indeed spent the past few days entirely in one another’s company, with the rest of the world blocked out completely, despite the consequences that held. And Matty had felt alive and free, limitless, like she had that first time, that Friday night, stretched out on Charlie’s bed, unsure what to make of herself anymore.

And she would have thought that by Monday she might have gathered somewhat more of a better idea, but she’d done very little thinking for once in her life. Instead, they’d sat together and talked, and kissed, and drank, and smoked, and fucked like there was nothing else left in the world at all. And a part of Matty really did begin to believe that things were like that, and despite all she knew, she began to crave it.

Because at least in that moment, Matty wanted to stay there forever, with Charlie, with stupid conversations, with drink, with sex, with his hands all over her body, and this new kind of living that left her so much more alive than anything else had.

But still, despite all she’d done, Matty still wasn’t quite stupid enough to truly believe that it was something that would happen. Monday had been pushing it after all, and she’d really been in two minds about calling in sick that morning, but when Charlie gave her a long, meaningful look, and a carefully placed optimistic smile, Matty would just about do anything for him.

“I’m gonna have to go soon.” Matty let out a sigh, stretching her arms out behind her, and basically doing all she could to postpone actually  _ looking _ at Charlie. “Tonight, probably.”

“Are you sure?” He watched her desperately, like he was just as afraid of losing her as she suddenly was of losing him. Matty gave a nod. “What about the morning? Stay tonight. Stay with me tonight, Matty, please.”

Matty pulled her lip between her teeth: she was torn, split right in two between the person she’d been just before the weekend - the life she had outside of this flat, and the new life she’d found for herself within it, within Charlie, and the warm look in his eyes.

“I can’t.” She told him, knowing that she should have been home that morning at least, and that if she’d really been in the right mind, she wouldn’t have been spending whole weekends away from home in the first place, especially not with just some guy she’d met at a club. Although, she wouldn’t quite call Charlie that anymore. But still, her mum was less likely to understand it in the way she might if Matty had just spent the time with Gemma.

“Why not?”

“I need to be home. I should have been home this morning. I’ve not spoken to my parents or my friends since, like… well… I’ve not spoken to my family since Thursday, and then some of my friends since Friday… and then… there’s…” Matty stopped herself as she reached the matter of George. She shook her head. “I’ve not spoken to some of my other friends since before that.”

“Then text them.” Charlie told her like it was simple. And for a moment, she just hoped she could have believed that it was. “You can use my phone if yours is out of charge.”

“No, it’s just… it’s off.” She finished, tugging anxiously at the hem of Charlie’s shirt, draped down over her skinny thighs.

“Why don’t you want to?” He continued to ask, meeting Matty with the kind of concern that she could have never imagined of him the first time she’d seen him that Friday night, but things had changed since then, and she sat there, certain that this was real, this was something, and this mattered.

“They’ll tell me I need to come home.” Matty let out a sigh.

“And you don’t want to.” Charlie finished for her, filling in the gaps the best he could, as he felt his mouth twitch up into a smile.

“I’m scared.” She admitted, with all the courage she had left in her. “This felt like… for me anyway, for me. For me, this felt like something. Like it mattered. I’m scared to lose this. I’m scared to lose… you.”

Charlie stopped for a moment, seeming to drown amidst his own thoughts for a little while. “Then don’t. Don’t lose me. I won’t let you if that’s what you want. This mattered to me too.”

Matty met him with a smile as she began to breathe a sigh of relief.

“What do you want?” He asked her directly, with a rather honest look in his eyes, perhaps even just blunt in some ways.

“I…” She stumbled, unsure of quite where to begin.

“From me.” Charlie began to clarify. “Of this. Of ‘us’. If there is an ‘us’. If you want there to be an ‘us’. What do you want, Matty? What do you want to be to me? Just  _ someone _ , just a friend, just… or just something else, like… something more than that.”

“What do you mean… something more than that?” Matty twitched slightly as she asked, her body beginning to tense up all over.

“Like… I don’t know…” Charlie let out a sigh. “Like my girlfriend or something stupid like that.”

Matty met him with a laugh. “Something stupid like that.” Charlie couldn’t help but raise his eyebrows. “I like… I like the sound… of the word…  _ girlfriend _ . Fuck, not necessarily yours, but in general, I just… it’s sort of validating, gender wise, isn’t it? Like I’m… maybe I’m not quite anyone’s sister or daughter, but I’m… someone’s  _ girlfriend _ .”

Charlie remained very silent for a moment. “I’d do that for you. If you want.” He skirted around Matty’s gaze almost nervously. “If that’s what you want. Because here’s the thing, princess, you matter. So what you want, I want that too. And do you? Do you want that? Do you want me?” He met her gaze rather suddenly, as he began to raise his voice.

And Matty sat there for a moment, weighing up everything in her mind. She could just feel herself making the worst decision of her life, but she let herself do just that, because at least for the time being, it just might be all that could keep her sane.

“Yeah.” She leaned in closer. “I want that.”

She held herself there for a moment, her brain taking a full minute to catch up to her heart, as he grabbed her with strong arms around her back, and pulled her in for a kiss.

And then when they did finally pull apart, Matty met him with a look of reverence. “I really do have to go now.”

Charlie gave her a smile and a nod, and this time, let her. 

It took her no more than five minutes to gather her stuff and put some more clothes on, and Charlie met her at the door again, kissing her only briefly as she slipped through the door, as she stood there, with his shirt still on, and he knew she would have to come back.

Matty spent the walk home that Monday evening, ignoring every single missed message and call on her phone, as she tried not to think about just how bad things could possibly be when she got home, and her feet properly landed back in reality again.

She’d looked back at the block of the flats the moment she’d made it out onto the main road, and there wasn’t a single question in her chest that it was where she wanted to stay. 

It was just the deepest piece of her heart that remained caught up in other ideas - caught up and lost in a warm golden light, in a gentle gaze, in words so softly spoken, in endless nights, in early mornings, and memories scattered around like photographs on bedroom walls.

-


	6. theyre idiots honestly they love each other but theyre absolute idiots

Despite her absence, despite the silence, despite the confusion, neither of Matty’s parents did give her even somewhat of a concerned or confused look the moment she arrived home. Instead it was all just nods and smiles, accompanied by vague drifts of conversation, and days spent apart - with Matty going straight to Charlie’s from work, and staying there for a few hours, but at least making a point of getting home before ten, of sleeping in her own bed. 

As although neither of her parents had looked at her that way, Louis certainly had. And there was nothing she might ever do to avoid that.

The looks came in time, though. After a few quiet days, after perhaps a world of still nothingness, of a family that was essentially broken, in a way that was overwhelmingly her fault. She knew, after all, that Louis sat away in his room and worried about her, and her parents sat together and worried about the distant nature of consequently both of their children. Then with the matter of sitting and worrying with one another, they found themselves desperately searching for anywhere to pin the blame, even if that had to be each other. 

Matty knew it all too well, and still, she did nothing. The house remained quiet, and still, with the TV on in the background, and perhaps the sound of plates being washed in the kitchen, met with only one pair of footsteps: hesitant and almost nervous to tread up the stairs.

But Matty didn’t feel guilty like she thought she might. Her mind didn’t trace around the situation until she physically shut down. It bothered her, but not to the extent that it meant something. She’d felt distant from her family for a long time before all of this, after all. And there was just something about these four walls that meant so little in the matter of home and comfort, especially when she compared them to a certain flat all the way across town.

Because Matty never spent very long at home anymore. She spent nights, in her room, with the lights off, with her head elsewhere, and the window open, smoking a cigarette as she perched on the windowsill, usually either listening to music or on the phone to Charlie. They spent breakfasts together, but they were rushed, and there was so much more on everyone’s mind than each other, with work and school, and love and hate, and places and people to be, taking up everything else, as they might awkwardly bump into one another as they waited for the kettle to boil.

And then Matty would go out to work, to stand behind a counter and make every type of bullshit fancy coffee under the sun, and smile at customers: at sweet little old ladies, at tired middle aged men, at school girls that might giggle and blush as she took their order, and guys, guys like George. The sort of people she’d used to stand there and admire, but now meant so little at all. And Matty would go out for a smoke in her break, and try to think up a million reasons why she was doing okay. Because still, she hadn’t even  _ spoken  _ to George, despite what she’d proclaimed to the rest of the world.

As after all, Gemma, and Amber, and Marika, were all so very confident in the good side of Matty: in the person that had kept her promise - that had met George with honesty that night, and found just something more than a guy at a club willing to fuck her. And of course, Matty would lie to them too: anything to keep up the illusion, and as time went on, George’s texts grew less frequent, and Matty managed to pretend that was okay.

Then after work, she’d go straight to Charlie’s, where he’d be waiting for her, and they’d sit around and kiss until their lips grew numb, and talk shit about everything and anything and maybe even each other too, and they’d smoke bitter cigarettes, and drink enough to make the world glow gold even in the most dismal of afternoons, and they’d lie there, so very close together: hot skin against cold, and as people, as skin and bones and thoughts and feelings - they’d share something. Something more than just the steady pitter patter of the rain against cold, frosted glass.

And Matty would go home. As she always did eventually. But Charlie wouldn’t let her leave without a fight. Without long stares and regretful sighs, and something to ensure that she’d keep coming back. But of course, she always would, because even in the most quiet and uncomfortable of afternoons, this was home, and he was her’s, even in the most simple and stupid of ways.

Matty didn’t get back until half past ten that Thursday. It was later than she would have liked it to be, but it was so very cold outside, and she’d wanted to stay there in bed - warm and content forever. But she always had to come home in the end. 

She’d texted Gemma briefly on the walk home, making sort of half plans for that weekend - to sit around and maintain smiles like everything was okay, and pretend that she had the kind of guts to talk to people like George, or maybe just even tell her best friends about her new boyfriend. As after all, she hadn’t yet. She hadn’t told a soul.

It wouldn’t last forever: Matty knew that. The facade would come crashing down in time, and she could never escape it. But for the meanwhile, for the cold Thursday evening air: everything was quiet, everything was still, everything was peaceful, even if just for now. 

By twenty to eleven, she made her way inside, and wandered slowly into the kitchen. She reckoned that she at least had enough time to settle herself down with a cup of tea before she really had to chase up some very persistent thoughts - the ones that she’d found running rampant around her head as of recent. However, as the world would have it, Matty was stopped just before she reached the kettle.

What had Matty so frozen in her tracks was not the simple presence of her mother, rummaging through the kitchen cupboards at the other end of the room, but the way her mother did finally turn and look her, and almost painfully stared her down.

For it had been a long time coming, but there she found it - that Thursday evening, that overdue, concerned and confused look. And the worst part of Matty was even excited to see it, raising her eyebrows across at her mum, before she marched over to the kettle, and setting it on to boil.

Yet before Matty even really knew what was happening, Denise had crossed the room in what seemed like one stride and turned the kettle off at the plug, even going so far as to yank the socket out of the wall, ridding the room of the steady humming of boiling water, and instead plunging them into a desperate silence, as she met Matty with a strikingly emphasised look to her eyes.

“Mum…” Matty didn’t quite know what to think. She looked almost helplessly between the plug and her mother. “What’s-”

“What’s  _ going on _ ?” Denise finished for her, her voice perhaps harsher than she would have liked it to be. She cleared her voice and tried again. “Sorry. I-”

Matty shook her head, taking a step back from her mother, wishing more than anything that she could just simply remove herself from the situation: to hide away upstairs behind a locked door, and just deal with the consequences when they did eventually come to arise.

“Matty.” Denise tried again, following Matty as she tried to retreat backwards out of the room. “We  _ need _ to talk.”

“ _ What _ ?” Matty came to a halt, pressing her back against the countertop as she met that same look in her mother’s eyes again and again. “Why?” She continued. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Truthfully, she knew what was wrong. Perhaps everything was wrong. And her mum had more than a right to sit her down and demand that she talked to her about some of this mess going on out of her reach. But Matty just couldn’t see why it had to be now, especially with everything else going on in her head, and just what had finally brought her mum to this conclusion.

It was then, however, that Matty glimpsed her reflection: faint and distorted in the aluminium body of the kettle, but still, even from across the room, Matty could make out the stark red colour of her lipstick.

And it was then, at quarter to eleven, that her heart dropped right through her chest. She’d left Charlie’s in such a hurry, with such a mess, that she’d left with her makeup on, and her hair tied back prettily, and Gemma’s heels put neatly by the front door. If only at the very least, she stood there, before her mother, with jeans on, and not that horrifically tight, obscenely short leather skirt that Gemma had also insisted that she’d taken from her.

“Oh…” Matty trailed off, holding her gaze to her reflection for just a moment more. Denise followed her gaze, and the came to the same understanding, and just for a moment, she stepped away from Matty, and looked up at her with sympathy, over anything else.

“We need to talk.” Still, she couldn’t help but repeat. This time, however, Matty gave way to a nod, deciding that she had to be right.

“Can I make that cup of tea though, first?” She asked, almost tentatively, as if she truly managed to fear whatever response she’d receive.

Denise hesitated momentarily, but in the end, nodded.

It was almost eleven by the time that they were sat down in the living room, with the table light producing a warm, almost comforting glow around them, as they positioned themselves on opposite ends of the sofa, with two mugs of tea sat on coasters at opposite ends of the coffee table.

Matty thought about wiping the lipstick off, about wiping the full face of makeup away too, at pulling her hair down, at feigning some pretence, or forming some lie, but she thought about a lot of things, about George, and what she should have said to him, and about Gemma, and all the promises and lies between them, and about her brother, sat upstairs with too much on his mind, and about her father, and wherever he might have been.

Yet in the end, all of those things remained as they were: just thoughts, nothing more, and nothing less. And Matty turned to her mum, and waited for her to find the right words to fill the almost damned silence that had filled out between them.

“What is it?” Denise met her with a desperate kind of sigh. “What’s going on, Matty -  _ please _ ? You’re hardly here, you hardly to speak to anyone anymore, you’ve not got the time, almost, but I can’t imagine just what you’re doing with all that time. And I thought maybe you were just with friends, or with a girl, or something, and you’d talk about that if you needed to, but…” 

Denise drew out a sigh. “I don’t mean this to come across the wrong way, love, but where could you possibly be and what could you possibly doing that leaves you coming home at eleven at night, with bright red lipstick on your face.”

Matty snorted; she couldn’t help herself. 

“I’m not saying- that… I’m not-” Denise fell into another sigh. “I’ve not based the fact that I’m worried about you off the fact that you’ve come home wearing lipstick, because that’s… that’s really not it, it’s just… I’m worried about you,  _ and _ you’ve come home wearing lipstick, and it’s all got a bit much. And I kind of feel like I don’t know what I’m doing anymore with you, because you’re an adult now, and I think about that, so I don’t bother you as much as I want to, but I do worry, so very much, and it’s just all got a bit much.”

Matty met her with a smile: oddly touched by it all. Still, she couldn’t think for the life of her as to just what she was possibly supposed to say. “So it’s not that you don’t like the lipstick?” Matty raised her eyebrows, watching her mother’s reaction with nothing but amusement.

She raised her eyebrows right back at Matty. “The lipstick’s nice. It’s a bit…  _ shocking _ , maybe. But I think it’s very you. Suits you, as well. It’s just… very…  _ there. _ ”

Matty snorted, attempting to keep their conversation as lighthearted as she could manage. “Opposite of me then. I’m hardly there, I’m hardly here, I’m…”

“Where are you then?” Denise struggled to fill the silence, watching Matty with, again, that concerned look in her eyes.

Matty let out a sigh, stretching herself out against the sofa. “I’m safe.” That was all she could give her mum in the end.

Denise watched her carefully. “You don’t want to tell me.” It wasn’t hard to infer.

Matty shook her head.

“I’m worried that it’s affecting you. That it’s affecting all of us. You need to spend more time with us, Matty. I don’t even know if I have the right to say that, seeing as you’re an adult now, but I’m your mum, and I’m worried about you.”

Matty gave way to a rather reluctant nod.

“Yeah.” She added, not meeting her mother’s eyes. “I’m safe. I’m with… friends… I just… I didn’t  _ mean _ it to happen, but you get caught up in just staying nights and having fun, and I guess I am eighteen now, and I… I’m safe, I promise.”

“Okay.” It took all she had to say it, but Denise did in the end. “That’s okay. You need your independence and your space. I just… would really appreciate it if you talked to me about it. Not about  _ everything _ , not like reporting to me, but just mention things, casually, if they come up. Not like you’re hiding everything away.”

“I’m sorry.” Matty let out a sigh.

Denise watched her for a moment. “And don’t think I’m fussed about the lipstick, alright? It’s just lipstick. I don’t want you to feel like you can’t wear it at home, or have to hide it or something. It’s just lipstick.”

Matty smiled and nodded, and wished so very desperately that really was  _ just lipstick _ .

-

Matty wasted away the sunlight, under an artificial warmth, spending perhaps far too much of her Saturday morning in the shower, finding an odd sense of comfort and safety under the hot jets of hot water spilling out across her body.

She found herself in there for over forty minutes - back towards the shower wall as she watched little droplets of water trace her form down from her chest, over her legs, and down to her feet. She let the water pool around her, and her skin grow red and raw - she let herself fade away, so very desperate for her senses just to fade out too.

But she found the same solution in the end. It took her thirty absent minutes, trying so desperately to keep her heart and mind in check, before, eventually, she gave in. She didn’t want to  _ think _ about her dick, let alone touch it, but it was there, and it craved just as much attention as she did.

And in that moment, as she stood there under the water, nothing seemed to matter very much at all anymore, just the very moment she curled her fingers in tightly around her cock.

Then soon enough, she was grasping the wall desperately to keep herself upright, as she struggled to subdue little moans and gasps that were just so very eager to escape her lips. She bit down on her lip until it bled, all in aid of keeping her mouth closed, and she stood there, thighs shaking furiously, as she found release in the worst place of all.

It took Matty the remaining ten minutes just to stand there and think, to remain, motionless, and broken somehow, or at least in pieces: hastily taped together, but just moments away from falling apart. She felt sick. And that felt pathetic to say, because this was nothing, but it wasn’t at all. This was just her stupid head, and those stupid thoughts of George that she couldn’t quite get off her mind.

It was George’s hand wrapped around her cock instead of her own, instead of Charlie’s even. It was the rather odd realisation that George was someone she’d trust with anything - someone she’d maybe even  _ beg _ to put his fingers around her cock, to touch her everywhere, to say anything, to do anything to her. Not only would she let him, she’d dedicate her life to begging for it.

Then for the first time, as she got out of the shower that Saturday morning, she saw that everything with Charlie was just nowhere near as perfect as she would have liked it to seem.

She then set to drying herself: rubbing her skin raw, as she stood absently contemplating the world, letting the morning burn away around her as something inside of her did too.

-

Matty barely had time to settle back down in her room again by the time there came a knocking at her door. After what she could easily dub the most traumatic wank of her life, she’d really needed some peaceful alone time - a space to think - to sit around and maybe consider calling up Gemma, and consider finally relaying the full details of the situation to her.

“Can I come in?” Louis’ voice was soon audible from out in the hallway, cutting into her thoughts with what Matty might have even misplaced as spite.

“Yeah.” She let out a sigh, falling back onto her bed and staring up at the ceiling as Louis made his way inside, glancing across at Matty with that same gut wrenching kind of concern in his eyes.

Matty hated this. She hated seeing her brother like this. She hated knowing that she was doing it to him.

“Are you not going to go down and get breakfast?” Louis watched her for a moment, waiting to see if she’d move, before eventually giving up and sitting down on Matty’s bed beside her.

Matty shook her head. “Not hungry.”

They both knew that wasn’t true. Louis could tell that Matty just really wasn’t in the mood for talking to people that day. He thought about inquiring as to why, but instead just lay down beside Matty, and in time, followed her gaze right up to the ceiling.

Matty was a little surprised to find that Louis had accepted her response as it was - like he’d even believed her lie. She knew, of course, that he hadn’t, but still, the fact that he thought better than to persist really began to twist and pull at her insides. She wondered if this was him giving up - she wondered if this was the last person finally giving up on her, and then she couldn’t help the panic that flooded her body in response.

Matty sat up with a start: taking them both by surprise. Her eyes grew wide like circles as she met her reflection in the mirror across the room; she looked a state, with curls flying out and sticking up in all manner of angles, and her skin still too pink from the forty minutes or so she’d spent in the shower.

“Matty?” Louis sat up slowly, watching her carefully, and doing all he could to keep himself as calm as possible. It was evident that there was something else now: something had just gone off inside of Matty’s head, and he just had to accept that he wouldn’t for the life of him, really be able to figure what it was, but despite that, he knew he had to help her the very best he could.

She swallowed hard, sucking her bottom lip into her mouth and then out again, leaving it red, swollen, and bloated. “I’m sorry.” Matty’s apology was quick, and arguably, insincere.

“About what?” Louis let himself wonder, even if just for a brief moment, whether this was it, whether this was finally the explanation of everything he’d been missing.

“About being shit.” Matty choked out, her words rather blunt, and so very tired of everything. “I’m scared. It’s all  _ bullshit _ , Louis. It’s all fucking bullshit.” She stopped herself rather suddenly, looking across at her younger brother, with eyes blown even wider. “I’m sorry.” She apologised quickly, shaking her head.

“It’s  _ okay _ .” Louis assured her, placing what he hoped might have been a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Come on, you really… you can swear in front of me, come on, do you really think I’ve never heard the word ‘fuck’ before?” Louis even managed a laugh.

Matty raised her eyebrows, glancing across at her brother with a questioning look. “Mum will kill me.”

“She’s not going to find out about this, come on-”

“Not about that.” Matty cut him off, finishing for him. She shook her head, and pulled her gaze back down to the ground. “Mum will kill me.” She repeated, as if trying to convince herself of it in some regard.

“What for then?” Louis couldn’t help but ask: not even fully sure if he was supposed to.

“She’ll say she won’t, but she will.” Matty shared an almost self-deprecating laugh with herself. “Fucking hell, Louis.” She choked out, perhaps just because she felt she could.

“What is it?” Louis continued to ask, growing braver by the second.

Matty shook her head, continuing to laugh through the unsettled, almost deathly feeling spreading up throughout her body from her stomach. 

“Fuck.” She let out a sigh, leaning back once more and throwing herself down onto the bed. This time, however, Louis watched her from where he was sat, carefully studying the look in her eyes. Instead of pushing her further, he let the room fall back into silence, giving her ample opportunity in which to speak.

It was just as Louis began to think that he’d made entirely the wrong decision, and that another word may never slip out of Matty’s lips, that she did finally begin to speak.

“I’ve… I’ve got this… I’ve got this  _ boyfriend, _ Lou.” 

Matty almost expected her stomach to drop right through her body and to the floor the very moment the words did finally slip her lips. She expected the whole world to turn on its head, maybe even the room to set on fire if she was feeling particularly dramatic, but instead, she found nothing at all.

The room was still, silent, and her heart remained firm: beating inside of her chest.

Louis finally figured that Matty was awaiting some sort of response from him before elaborating further, and cleared his throat before adding perhaps the only thing he could think of. “Oh. What’s his name?”

Matty sat up instantly at that, staring across at Louis like he was mad. Completely utterly fucking mad.

“What’s his name?” She repeated, staring down at her brother like the question was the most preposterous thing she’d heard in her life.

“Yeah…” Louis trailed off, unable to determine just what it was that he’d managed to set off in Matty. “What’s his name?” He repeated, quieter this time around.

“Not… ‘oh you’re  _ gay _ ?’ or whatever?” Matty finally managed to find it within herself to speak, her tone coming across as almost even a little bit agitated. “Not… ‘I can’t believe it’, or ‘seriously?’, or ‘no, you must be joking, you’ve had girlfriends’. No fucking… ‘so you’re gay now?’... no… fucking… just… ‘what’s his name?’. That’s  _ all _ you can say?” Her eyes grew wide. “All you can say?”

Louis studied her face for a good moment. “I kind of guessed that you might be.” He admitted, wondering if it was impolite not to be surprised. “I mean… the whole ‘trust me I’m never going to get someone pregnant’, and then once you almost said ‘he’ instead of ‘she’, and I didn’t say anything, but I noticed.”

Matty stared across at her little brother: completely astounded. “I’m not even gay.” She choked out, feeling rather like she needed to.

“Okay.” Louis smiled back at her. “Just because you have a boyfriend doesn’t mean that you’re  _ gay _ , I mean, there are other sexualities, aren’t there?”

“Yeah…” Matty gave a nod, and let herself pretend that Louis was right, and that was it.

“So what’s his name?” Louis continued after a moment. Matty once again, looked across at him like he was mad. “No, seriously. What’s his name? I want to know.” He assured her.

“Charlie.” Matty finally gave into a response. “His name’s Charlie.” 

She stopped for a moment, but the very second she saw Louis’ mouth moving into place to form a response, she knew that was something she couldn’t handle, at least not yet, and found the first thing on her mind to fill the silence with instead.

“That’s where I am.” Matty continued: a grave kind of desperation evident in her tone. “When I’m gone… most of the time. I spend a lot of time at his. I’m sorry. I feel bad. I feel bad about everything. I didn’t want to say, but I didn’t want to keep it a secret. It would be different if he was a girl. I hate that.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Louis told him. “Doesn’t matter if you’re with a boyfriend or a girlfriend. You’re still gone, and we’re still worried, and we don’t care whether it’s a boyfriend or a girlfriend you’re with, just that you’re safe.”

“We?” Matty raised her eyebrows.

“Me, mum, and dad.” Louis supplied, like this was all so much more simple than it really was.

Matty shook her head. “I can’t tell them.” She admitted. “Not in a million years. God, Louis, you know… I’m really… I’m terrible. I can’t talk about things at all, especially not things like this, especially not coming out.”

“You came out to me just fine.” He assured her.

“But I had to.” Matty did a better job of convincing herself.

“You didn’t have to.” Louis spoke rather plainly, slowing his tone a little.

“No. I was going to lose you otherwise. I could see that. And I’m twice as scared of losing you than I could ever possibly be scared of what you could say.” Matty cleared her throat. “I had to. But I’m glad that I did. It didn’t feel like I thought it would.”

“What did you think it would feel like?” He couldn’t stop himself from asking.

“Like the whole world was ending, really.” Matty gave way to a laugh, playing with her hair. “But it felt like nothing. A good kind of nothing. Because it does  _ matter _ , and it does change things. It just… it’s okay. Isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Louis told her, offering up a smile that seemed to mean the whole world. “It’s okay. More than okay. It’s brilliant.”

“Shut up.” Matty rolled her eyes. “It’s not brilliant, it just is.”

“No.” Louis shook his head. “He makes you happy, doesn’t he?” Matty felt almost obliged to nod. “Then that’s… that’s brilliant. Because that’s what I want really, to make sure that you’re happy.”

And Matty sat there for a good while, unsure of just quite what to think, because she thought that Louis was right, and that she was, but she knew deeply, on a much more complex level, things just weren’t quite as they seemed.

She sat there for a good while, and thought about every little fight, and every stupid moment, and the whirlwind nature of it all, of what Gemma just finally might say when she gathered the courage to tell her, and just what it had meant to find her hand curled tightly around her dick, wishing desperately that it could be George’s.

-

Matty had come to a sort of conclusion. Well, really, she’d only vaguely managed to draw up plans in her mind, and the actual conclusion of the matter was something she only really reached as stood right on Gemma’s doorstep.

She wondered if this was where she might always find herself in the end. She wondered if Gemma would grow tired. Tired of making her cups of tea, of shelling out bottles of wine, of sitting her down and listening, listening to the worst kind of silence, or to the worst kind of noise. Tired of letting her stay the night, tired of the spare room, and the way it was never quite clean, and how Matty kept a spare set of clothes in the drawers. 

Matty wondered if Gemma was tired of her in general. If she’d quite reached that point yet.

It took Matty all of three minutes to bring herself to finally knock at Gemma’s front door, finding however, that as she tapped on it, the door fell open into the hallway. Matty stared at the small slither of light leading into Gemma’s home, and just wondered for while. She wondered why her front door had been left unlocked, and why the house seemed so on edge - even with a forced kind of stillness and silence.

She didn’t have to wonder for very long.

The silence split right in two with a great force, with a sudden shouting from further inside, with two familiar voices that Matty couldn’t quite properly place from the distance.

Matty knew that this was a clear sign that she shouldn’t go inside; that now wasn’t a good time. But she did so regardless, perhaps unable to control her feet as they stepped over the threshold and pulled her inside. But that was a lie. She was well in her own control - she was just desperate: pathetically needy, and so very alone.

Matty didn’t quite come to regret her actions until her carefully placed quiet footsteps drew her to the living room doorway. She stopped herself just out of view, her eyes growing wide as she settled her gaze upon the scene before her.

“I’m  _ worried _ about him. I’m fucking- you couldn’t just… you couldn’t just mention like… oh yeah, by the way, he doesn’t fucking hate your guts? How hard is that, Gemma? How hard? How hard is it to send one text, four fucking words - Matty doesn’t hate you. How fucking hard would that have been?”

Matty’s inside tensed up, feeling an awful lot like she just couldn’t breathe; she’d never seen George like that before - quite so angry. She’d never even really considered that George could get into such a state, but here he was, and it was all over him.

Gemma shook her head across at him. “Not my business to say, though, is it? And how would I know if anything had gone on between you two? Come on, surely you fucking know Matty enough to know that… sh- Matty doesn’t  _ talk _ about well basically anything, about problems, or life, or fucking arguments. Matty doesn’t open up, you know that? Matty doesn’t just come over and sit down and offer up an entire life story. Matty doesn’t even come over when s- they really need to. In a state, or whatever. Matty sits at home and cries and doesn’t talk to anyone. I’m not the person who could be able to tell you the great details of how Matty feels about you?  _ No one _ can.”

Matty’s stomach began to fall away inside her chest. Really, she did appreciate the lengths Gemma had gone to as to not misgender her, all without outing her to George. But coupled with the subject matter, put together with all Matty could never do for her. Matty knew that she wasn’t the kind of friend anyone deserved.

Matty moved her gaze across to George, to the way the morning sun caught his face - to the way his eyes seemed to shimmer in the light. Yet that was all so superficial, it meant nothing at all, because George was beautiful, more than he could ever be inside of Matty’s head. But still, Matty hadn’t spoken to him in weeks, and that felt so deathly permanent as she faced it like this.

“You should have-” George choked up, shaking his head and turning away from Gemma. “Fuck. I don’t know what you should have done. I’m just… I really thought I fucked up somehow, you know? I couldn’t  _ stop _ thinking about that. Couldn’t stop thinking about  _ him _ . What I’d done. Maybe it had been too much when he’d stayed at mine, and I’d let him fall asleep on me. Maybe he didn’t want that, maybe he felt like I pushing things, maybe he thought like I was taking  _ advantage _ of him. And I fucking… those thoughts aren’t leaving me alone, Gemma. I’m sorry. I’m just. I’m going a bit mad. Amber told me not to tell you, but she wanted me to talk to you. I think maybe Amber just wanted me to shut up about him. I think I want me to shut up about him. I want it all to stop. I want it all to go away. But I want him to come back. I miss him. That’s fucked, isn’t it? He obviously doesn’t miss me. Obviously doesn’t give a fuck about me. But I miss him. So much. It’s stupid. I’m stupid.”

And as the house fell back into silence, Matty felt her insides turn to mush, because here it was - a very real reminder of horrible kind of person she could be. This was what she did to people, this was the mess inside her head hurting other people too, this was how she would eventually break and ruin everything she’d ever loved. Everyone she’d ever loved.

George was wrong when he’d thought he might break her. Matty could do it in an entirely different way: without even realising, and with twice the pain.

“George…” Gemma finally began to speak: her voice perhaps overly tentative, and so very lost. Matty watched Gemma carefully, recognising the distraught kind of look mixed up in her eyes, and hated to know that she’d put it there.

“Yeah.” George let out a sigh, stretching up to cover his face, and the fact that he was wiping tears from it. The gesture might have fooled Gemma but it hid nothing from Matty.

“I tried.” Gemma’s voice was almost pleading, looking up at George with hopeful eyes, like that alone might somehow make this right. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know what was going on. And when Amber told me… I  _ tried _ . I really did. I thought Matty had spoken to you last weekend. Was going to at least. That’s what Matty told me.”

“Speak to me?” George raised his eyebrows. “You say that like it’s  _ something _ . Like he’s got something to  _ tell _ me. More than, ‘oh yeah, I don’t hate you’.”

Gemma hesitated a moment before she gave a nod. “Matty has.” She bit her lip, letting go of the part of herself that had sworn not to mention a word of it to George. “It’s… important. Like… it’s not that… Matty… Matty’s scared. Of what you’ll say. Or maybe just of the act of telling you. I don’t know exactly which.”

“Should he be?” George continued to ask. And Matty remained silent, feeling her insides crumbling to dust - perhaps not even so much as George’s persistent use of the word ‘he’, but just in relation to the situation as a whole, to the way George was clearly breaking before her. To the wiped away tears still evident on his face. That was what really snapped Matty in two.

“No. I don’t think so.” Gemma let out a sigh. “But, Matty thinks so.”

“Will he ever tell me?” George pulled his gaze down to the floor. “Will he ever even talk to me again, for fuck’s sake…?”

Gemma wished she could have promised George the world, but she couldn’t promise him even a single thing in it. “I don’t know.” She muttered, pulling her gaze away from George’s, and in the process of doing so, turned to the doorway, and to the shadow of Matty stood, so very wide eyed, behind it.

Matty’s skin grew cold, doing her best to retreat away into the shadows, but as she attempted to do so, she found that the world really did just truly despise her, as she seemed to trip over nothing, stumbling and steadying herself against the living room door. It was as she did so, however, that the door moved under her weight, creaking open and almost shoving her right into the doorway: leaving her almost painfully visible.

Matty didn’t quite know what to say at all.

Neither did George.

And really, neither did Gemma. But she was the one that did the talking in the end, seeing as she was soon to realise that she was the person in the room who was definitely the least likely to start crying within the next minute.

“Matty…” Her voice was almost painfully soft, taking in Matty’s appearance - relatively nondescript, of course, aside from the bright red lipstick, which was something Matty had really taken a liking to. The lipstick left a stark, almost painful contrast, seeming to demand its own space and its own silence amidst the room, amidst the lost looks, amidst the mess they’d made, all three of them.

“Yeah…” Matty trailed off, drawing a heavy sigh. “You left your door open. Funny that.” She couldn’t help the way her tone seemed to grow increasingly bitter. “Funny that. Isn’t it? Because I came over to talk. You know, to sit down and offer up my life story. What’s going on in my life, and all that. Because I’m not stupid, and I know I need to tell you, I need your advice. What I  _ don’t _ need, is you fucking talking shit about me, fucking slagging me off, and that look in your eyes like you’re going to tell  _ him _ everything.”

George didn’t quite know how he was supposed to feel in relation to being referred to as ‘ _ him _ ’. Really, he was just perhaps overly grateful to be referred to by Matty at all.

“I’m not slagging you off, I’m telling the truth. We’re worried about you. And I think maybe George should know.” Gemma grew a little braver, approaching Matty with a stern look held in her eyes.

“Sound just like my fucking  _ mum _ , you do.” Matty rolled her eyes, giving way to a little snort.

“What? Are you surprised? That she’s worried about you as well? That everyone’s worried about you? Because you’re making a real fucking mess out of your life, out of yourself, here. It’s fucking hard not to.” Gemma wondered perhaps if she’d been a little too harsh, but it was the point where she reckoned Matty just might have to take it.

“She’s not  _ worried _ . Not really.” Matty rolled her eyes, shaking her a little. “She just  _ has _ to care. She doesn’t care about where I am, not really. She doesn’t  _ want _ me around. Not really. She just… she had to. She’s worried about the lipstick and what that means, and if I end up getting myself killed or not. Because that, that’ll make her look bad.”

Gemma watched Matty in what was almost disgust. “Oh fuck off, Matty. You know that isn’t true. I  _ know _ your mum. I’ve known her for years, and she’s  _ lovely _ . And of course she cares about you, she cares about you  _ so much _ . You’re the one that’s stopping her. You’re not letting her in.”

“So it’s  _ my _ fault?” Matty glanced across at her, seeming to regard her as little more than abhorrent. 

“Well…” Gemma trailed off. “ _ Yeah _ .” She went for in the end. “It kind of is.”

“Gemma-” It was then that George finally interjected, seeing that something had definitely gone too far. However, Matty even barely let him begin.

“You can _fuck off_. The both of you. Like fuck can you possibly understand or think you fucking _know_ , what the fuck’s going on in my fucking head, just _fuck_ _off_. Like forever, alright?”

And Matty barely even gave herself a moment to think about just what she’d done before she’d stormed out, tears flooding down her cheeks as she made a desperate stumble out into the street.

She thought then that she was safe - free from complications and consequences, to run and hide away from the rest of her life. It had barely even taken Matty ten seconds to come to a firm conclusion that Charlie’s place was where she was ultimately headed, but it seemed as if those had been ten seconds too many, as she’d slowed, taking a moment for herself and her head, the calm and the quiet was sliced right in two with the hammering of footsteps against the pavement.

“Matty!” She didn’t even have to turn and look to know it was George.

Despite the fact that all she wanted to do was run and hide, to avoid everything, to avoid  _ him _ , in particular, her feet seemed rooted to the pavement. And for a brief moment, Matty remained still, silent, and perhaps even waiting, for George to catch up to her.

“Don’t go.  _ Please _ .” George flat out begged her, standing between Matty and the other end of the street.

Matty swallowed hard, sinking her teeth deep into her bottom lip. “Alright…” She muttered in the end, pulling her gaze down and away from George’s.

George let out a rather exasperated sigh, and Matty took a moment to wonder whether he’d been expecting that kind of reaction at all.

“I fucked things up again.” Matty let out a sigh, daring to meet George’s eyes for just a moment. Still, he looked down at her with all the love in the world, but never the love that Matty needed.

“No you didn’t.” George assured her, sounding even somewhat certain of it.

“No. I  _ did _ .” Matty raised her voice a little way: so very desperate to prove her point. “Gemma fucking hates me, again. So, Amber and Marika are going to be pissed at me. My parents fucking hate me. I’m fucking things up at home, everything’s fucked, because I’m never there and everyone’s worried, but I’ll never talk about anything, because I’m fucked in the head, I am. And then I fucked things up with you, because I’m stupid and pathetic, and couldn’t bare to fucking face you, and I shouldn’t even dare to fucking face you anymore. I don’t  _ deserve _ it. I don’t deserve you. I don’t deserve you still looking at me like I’m important, like I’m special, like I matter. I’m a fuck up, George. A real, fucking, fuck up.”

George didn’t quite know what he was doing as he pulled Matty tightly into his chest, in the middle of the street, in the middle of the day, but without a care in the world. 

And they remained like that for a good few minutes, as Matty slowly began to weep against George’s chest, and didn’t quite possess the courage to have him look at her like that.

“You’re not.” George whispered down to her, meaning every word.

“It’s my fault.” Matty reiterated Gemma’s words, unable to stop the way they haunted her head.

“It’s  _ not _ . Gemma was out of line.” George shook his head. “It’s  _ not _ . I promise you.”

“Stop pretending, George.” Matty finally pulled away, meeting George’s gaze with a horrible kind of lost look set deep into her eyes. “Let yourself hate me. It’s fine. I’m fine.”

“I don’t-” George protested: pulling all he had into proving this one point.

But Matty didn’t even give him the time.

“You do.” She whispered. “And if you don’t you should.”

Matty’s words cut deep, and somehow, George let her walk away this time.

-

“You look lost, love.” 

George drew his eyes wide and blinked, focusing his gaze up away from the floor, and perhaps towards the midday sun streaming in through the kitchen window.

He gave a nod in response, holding an empty mug of tea loosely in his hand.

“Put that down before you drop it.” His mother’s tone grew condensing, looking at George as if he was eight not eighteen, and not just twice her size. 

Slowly, George placed the mug down on the countertop beside him; there was something eternally sombre about his every move, like he just wasn’t quite in connection with himself anymore. There was little way around the fact that it made her feel sick to stomach - watching her son like that, but as time dragged on, it just looked more and more like there was nothing she could do.

“Tell me what’s up,  _ please _ .” She tried for what was easily the tenth time since George had made it back home. He’d left in a hurry that morning, with an almost furious kind of determination set deep into his eyes, but over the course of the morning, as he’d returned, that had fizzled out to a distant kind of sadness, as if he lived inside a world painted only in shades of grey.

George bit his lip, his gaze hugging his form back down to his feet. He gave a shrug, and wished he could just fade away into the floor.

“Do you want something, then?” George’s mum continued in her desperate plight to extract any kind of response from her son. “Another cup of tea? A biscuit? I could make you something to eat.”

Really, what George wanted was a spliff, but that wasn’t the kind of thing he was going to so nonchalantly announce to his mother on a Saturday morning. Instead, George shook his head.

“George…” She trailed off, just watching him for a moment, perhaps all the concern in the world gathering in her gaze just to shower him with. Still, George didn’t even do as much as turn his head. “You never get like this. What’s wrong? I’m  _ worried _ about you.”

That was what did it.

“Matty.” George let the name slip his lips with ease, pulling his gaze back up to finally meet his mother’s. “Do you remember Matty?”

“The one with the curly hair? That you brought over once?” She raised her eyebrows in response.

“Yeah.” George gave a nod.

“Course I remember him.” She even went as far as to crack a smile. “Who wouldn’t?”

George forced his most weak and pathetic smile. “I think he hates me. Or at least wants me to hate him. So maybe then he doesn’t feel so bad about hating me. And I don’t know what I’ve done. And he’s in a right state, honestly. I think he hates me for worrying about him, but it’s hard not to, because he won’t talk to anyone, he’s like… so distant, he’s just drifting from person to person and place to place like it doesn’t mean anything. And I wonder if it even does mean anything to him anymore. All his friends and family are worried about him too and he’s just pushing everyone away. I don’t want to watch him do that to himself, but he won’t let me help him.”

“Some people just aren’t going to let you help them until it’s far too late.” She added, trying her best to twist her head around the whole Matty situation.

“And…” George continued, reliving their earlier conversation back through his head. “Gemma, his best friend. She told me that he’s got something to tell me, but he won’t, like it’s the thing he’s scared of most in the world - telling me. I think maybe that’s what’s… making him distance himself from me… this  _ thing _ . And I don’t think he’s ever going to tell me. I don’t even know if he’s ever going to talk to me again.”

“If that’s what’s causing all of this, and you know he’s never going to tell you then…” She stopped herself for just a moment, holding George’s gaze in silence for a brief while, as she found herself hesitant, and oddly nervous to continue. “You have to find out for yourself. And you then have to… you have to let him know that it’s okay, and that it shouldn’t make him push himself away from you.”

“How am I supposed to do that?” George let out a pathetically desperate kind of sigh - one that seemed to fade out into a misplaced kind of breathy laugh at some point. “

“I don’t know, George.” She let out a sigh. “I don’t know him, I don’t know what it could be.”

George just stood there and thought for a moment. “Could be anything. But I guess it has to relate to me… doesn’t it? I mean, or at least… our friendship, or whatever, if it even is a friendship, anymore… our ‘relationship’... acquaintanceship, whatever.”

George’s mum fell almost painfully silent for a moment. 

“What?” He couldn’t help but fixate on the sudden pressing look in her eyes.

She bit her lip. “George… I… I don’t know him, I don’t know you, but… from what I’ve seen… from what I’ve heard about him from you. You two are very… attached, aren’t you?”

“Attached?” George raised his eyebrows - perhaps they had been, but that definitely didn’t seem to ring true anymore.

“I don’t mean to presumptuous, or anything, but… have you ever considered that he might… like you?”

George’s heart stopped dead inside of his chest.

“Course he doesn’t.” He brushed it off: overcompensating, with exasperated, breathy laughter. “That’s just stupid. Why would he like me?”

“Why wouldn’t he?” She offered in response.

George rolled his eyes. “He doesn’t. Alright. He’s so… obnoxiously, loud, so over-confident, so blunt, brutally honest. He’d tell me. I’d know. If Matty liked me, he would have tried to kiss me by now.”

“You know, George…” She continued, growing close to the point where she perhaps wondered if she should stop, but she couldn’t quite help herself. “With people like that, the whole confidence thing is usually just an act. And when something’s important and it matters, they’ll want to hide it away forever. I think he has feelings for you. I really do.”

-

“Fuck, I’m close.”

Matty let herself fall in love with the ache of her knees, as she pressed her whole body weight into the floor: sheltered with one strong hand over her head, and back pressed against the living room wall, the other entangled tightly in her hair, roughly tilting her head upwards, keeping her eyes blown just as wide as her lips.

But she liked it like that.

With no feeling besides the ache in her knees and the butterflies in her stomach, coupled with the stretching of her lips as they curled tightly around his cock. And she gave in to the pressure, and let Charlie fuck her mouth, and let him smile down at her like she was the beautiful thing in the world.

Because it was a hazy Saturday afternoon, and she needed that.

“You want it in your mouth?” Charlie’s voice crumbled in the moment, in the heat, in the pressure, in the connection of their bodies, but despite that, in the way, Matty felt so distant, drifting, almost worlds away.

But she needed it like that.

Matty mumbled vaguely around his cock, and really it could have been either a yes or a no - neither of them were particularly sure. But Charlie had let go before either of them could stop to think about it anyway.

Matty’s body grew limp and fragile around him, shuddering slightly, as he pulled away, leaving Matty there to stumble without support. As Charlie struggled with his zipper, Matty did her best to swallow all she could, fighting down the feeling of nausea from somewhere deeper inside her than her stomach, and let her body slump down against the wall.

“You want me to help you out?” Charlie turned back to Matty, watching her carefully as she stretched her head back against the wall.

She shook her head, pulling her gaze down to the floor; she felt too sick to be hard anymore.

“Sure?” Charlie met her with an odd glance.

Matty gave him little more than a short nod.

“I’ll get you some water.” Charlie turned towards the kitchen, and Matty let him go without even a glance.

It didn’t feel right anymore.

Matty wasn’t quite so sure as to whether she was physically sick or just emotionally.

She’d fallen for the ache of her knees, for the living room floor, for the fingerprints left on her hips, and not the hand that had put them there. She’d fallen for the consequence and not the situation, for the place to stay and the warm look in his eyes, but really, it could have been anyone, this could have been anything.

But deep inside of her heart, there was the one thing she yearned for it to be. The one person she yearned to see smile at her like that again. But Matty had fucked that up too.

Matty didn’t even properly process Charlie’s return, just the glass of water placed beside her on the floor. She stared at it for a moment, before downing the glass in one go.

“You alright?” Charlie asked her, leaning down in front of her, just where she couldn’t avoid him.

Matty shook her head, letting out a horribly pathetic kind of sob as she threw her head back against the wall. The last thing she wanted to do was cry in front of Charlie, to get emotional, and ruin this too.

“Shit, sweetheart, don’t cry.” Charlie reached forward to stroke her hair.

Matty slapped his hand away. “Don’t call me sweetheart.” The words had left her lips before she even knew what they could mean.

“Matty…” Charlie trailed off, getting to his feet, and doing his best to give her some space. “I’m sorry?”

“You’ve not done anything.” Matty insisted, pulling her legs back up to her chest and curling in around herself.

“Then why are you taking it out on me?” Charlie’s voice grew sterner, almost petulant. “That’s not…  _ fair _ , is it?”

“I can’t  _ help  _ it.” Matty choked out, reaching for Charlie as she stumbled to her feet. He held her there for a while - close to his chest, but never quite against it.

“Try.” He told her, settling his gaze out on the horizon: the greying afternoon sky through the open window.

“I  _ can’t _ .” Matty stressed, beginning to shake all over. She wanted Charlie’s hands off of her, she wanted to leave. She didn’t want this. She didn’t want him anymore. She didn’t want that look in his eyes like he knew her whole world. Because he barely even knew a fraction of it.

“You  _ can _ .” Charlie even laughed it off, smiling down at Matty as if the matter was even comical.

“Fuck-...” Matty choked on her words, pulling away from him and stumbling as she did so. “I’m… just… just leave it. I’m going.” She found herself reaching the conclusion before she could quite finish.

“Where are you going to  _ go _ ?” Charlie looked at her like the idea was utterly preposterous. “You’ve still got cum on your face, love. Let me clean you up.”

“Don’t.” Matty raised her voice almost in panic, crossing the room as quickly as she could. “I’m going.” She repeated, sterner this time, wiping her face into her sleeve. She knew it was gross, and she already felt sick, but more than anything she just needed to leave.

“Okay.” Charlie’s voice was perhaps even overly calm, like a part of him didn’t quite believe that she would.

And for the first time, Charlie let her go, watching her walk out into the hallway, and catching her out of the window, making sure she made it onto the street alright. Because he did care - if there was one thing that he could prove, it was that.

-

If Matty was being  _ entirely _ honest with herself, she didn’t quite know where she was going at all.

She guessed by that conclusion, that perhaps it hardly mattered just where she went at all. She just needed somewhere - she just needed someone. She didn’t even ask for anyone to listen; she may not even say a word. Matty just needed somewhere to sit down, and someone to sit with her - accompanied by either endless silence or endless conversation.

Matty went perhaps the only place she could go. A far too familiar doorstep, a place she’d lingered for far too long, yet a place she hardly knew at all. She did consider the nature of the decision, and as to where it could do nothing but make things worse for her, but Matty had reckoned she’d reached a point in her life where things just simply  _ couldn’t _ get any worse.

Still, despite the odd kind of certainty in her mind, she hesitated for a good few minutes before she rang the doorbell. The moment she did so, the whole world seemed to split in two, bringing forth the final separation between what she wanted and what she needed. And as much as that hurt, it was a good thing. It had to be.

“Matty…” She was met by an almost elusive, drifting sort of vague introduction, as if the woman behind the door just wasn’t quite sure what to make of her. Really, the situation was rather impromptu, and she hardly knew her at all, but still, she’d reached that awful kind of desperate by now. 

“Sorry, I-” Matty blushed, stumbling to provide some sort of explanation to her situation. The woman, however, didn’t quite let her finish.

“He’s upstairs. In his room.” She supplied, facing Matty with a small, somewhat forced smile, as she stepped aside to let her in.

“T-Thank you…” Matty trailed off, watching her for a moment, before accepting reality, accepting what had brought everything to be, what had brought her here, and found the guts to make her way up the stairs.

Matty stood, wordlessly, in the landing for quite some time. Eyes focused on one very specific door, and the slight crack between it and the frame: the small slither of light streaming out into the dimly lit hallway.

Matty stood there motionlessly and felt all the breath leave her body. She thought she might stand there and stare for hours, until they ran out of time, until they ran out of words, until she ran out of people to be. Until she ran out of people to love, and meaningless boys to fall for. Until she finally found that grip she thought she had on herself, until everything started to make sense again, and until she could do so much as touch herself without being drawn back to everything with a nauseating sense of guilt set firmly throughout her body.

But Matty simply stood there until George opened the door.

He looked a little startled, and really who could blame him. And together, they stood there - wordless, motionless, hopeless - until the world seemed to snap right in two.

“I…” Matty struggled for what to say: taking in George from the dark circles under his eyes to the blotchy red colour to his cheeks. She didn’t like to consider the idea, to breathe life into the possibility, but she found very little way around the fact that George had been crying, and that likely, George had been crying over her.

And that made her sick much more easily than anything else had before.

“Hey…” George choked back, the corners of his lips turning up into a small smile in recognition of Matty, and the stupid, warm feeling that she brought about him.

“Hey.” Matty added back: voice little more than a whisper.

“I’m…” George trailed off, gesturing awkwardly. “I’m gonna go piss, just, sit down or whatever, we can talk in a minute.” He met Matty with a nervous smile. “If you  _ want _ to.”

Matty gave a nod, making his way inside of George’s room as he left for the bathroom. She hadn’t quite known what to do with herself - whether just to stand there awkwardly, or to sit down on the end of the bed, or whatever. She didn’t quite get that far, however, as she looked around her, at those same bedroom walls, but so much emptier than before.

And Matty stood there - the same kind of still and silent she had been before. It just hurt her heart somehow, and she couldn’t quite figure out as to why.

George appeared again soon enough, pushing his bedroom door shut behind him, before following Matty’s gaze around the room. And really, it hurt him in quite the same way.

“You took them down.” Matty uttered, as if in a state of total confusion. She turned, taking in the entirety of his room.

“Not all of them.” George added, perhaps somewhat in his defense.

“Most of them.” Matty clarified, letting out a sigh. “Why?” She couldn’t help but ask - more than prepared to stand around waiting for George to tell her she was being impolite.

“I guess I realised that not all memories are things you really want to keep.” George gave a shrug, sitting himself down on the end of his bed. He expected Matty to follow him, but instead, Matty still appeared to be far more absorbed with the empty space on his bedroom walls.

“Why?” Matty choked out: unable to stop herself.

George let out a sigh. “Because some memories make you feel shit.”

Matty met him with wide, startled eyes.

“And I’ve felt like shit much more than I need to over the past few weeks.” He added, unable to stop himself. It was too much, and they both knew it.

“I’m sorry.” Matty slumped down next to him, and they sat together, perhaps entirely too close, but without even a single desire to move. “I’m shit. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Not your fault.” George assured her, like he even truly believed it.

Matty looked across at him like he was just plain stupid. “Don’t lie to yourself.”

“Don’t tell me to hate you. Don’t do that again.” George’s response was fast, spoken almost with a hint of malice behind his words. “Don’t do that.” He pleaded.

“I’m sorry…” Matty trailed off, because she really was, and there was this great ache in her chest like she just didn’t know what to do with herself anymore.

“It’s alright.” George assured her, even meeting Matty with a small smile. “We’re both in a bit of a state, aren’t we?” He gave way to a laugh. “Do you wanna, just… put on a movie or something?”

Matty thought for a moment. The idea was perhaps the most tempting thing in the world: sat entirely too close to George, under blankets, with no need to do or say anything, just to exist, to co-exist, to share each other’s space, and to share each other’s smiles. 

Matty wanted it more than anything. But it just wasn’t what she needed.

She gave way to a sigh, unsure quite how to get the words out. “Actually… can we talk?” Matty dared to flash her eyes back up to George’s. “I think I really need to.”

George watched her for a moment, almost as if he wasn’t quite certain of the truth behind her words. “Yeah…” He met her with a smile. “Course.”

Matty sat there for a moment and just breathed, doing all she could to get her head in order, to pull her eyes away from that questioning, unspoken something, held so very tightly in George’s gaze.

“You can.” She uttered before she could quite stop herself. George met her with a look of confusion. “Whatever’s on your mind. You can say it. You can talk as well. About you, about me, about whatever. This  _ isn’t _ just about me. You’re… you’re upset too.”

George shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean… I always… I always feel like I’m the one listening. I know how to listen, to give advice, just not… open up myself.” He admitted, giving way to a nervous kind of laughter.

Matty offered him the best kind of comforting smile she could muster. “You should. I mean, I hardly know how to handle my own shit, so I don’t know how good any kind of advice I could offer you could be, I just… I’d listen. I care. Funny that. I care. About you. Like lots. Like so much. Like a crazy amount. Especially since I fucked off. And come on, bitch at me for fucking off, do it, if you want to - please.”

George didn’t say a word.

Matty rolled her eyes. “I told you that you can.”

George sighed, finally parting his lips to give way to a single word. “Why?”

“Why did I… go?” Matty trailed off, wondering just how she could possibly phrase that. “Because… I… I had a lot of shit. I have a lot of shit going on. And I was scared of… what you’d think… about this  _ thing _ . About many  _ things _ . I’m scared of what you’ll think of me. And I thought distancing myself from you would make me feel better, maybe just be a bit more competent emotionally, but I still feel like shit. I felt more like shit, for just… ignoring you.”

“Tell me if I did something.” George insisted, meeting Matty with a look sterner than she’d ever seen before. “Because I need to know if it’s my fault.”

“George…” Matty trailed off, wide eyed, and almost dumbfounded by the notion. “You… you were just… you never did anything. You were just  _ there _ . And I think you meant too much to me, out of nowhere, and I didn’t know how to deal with that. Because there’s this  _ thing _ . This thing about me, and I’m terrified to let you know, because I’m terrified of what you’ll say, but I found it so hard to live with you not knowing. Now… it’s… I think… I don’t know… everything’s different.”

“Everything’s fucked?” George asked, raising his eyebrows.

Matty shook her head, laughing a little. “I mean, Gemma hates me, so Amber and Marika are going to be pissed at me, and my parents are pissed at me, and Charlie either hates me or he’s pissed at me, and I…” She trailed off. “But you don’t hate me. We’re… alright now, this is… this is good. And Louis doesn’t hate me.”

“Who’s Louis?” George asked, wondering if he even should.

“My brother.” Matty supplied, a smile slipping her face. “He’s thirteen.”

“Didn’t know you had a brother.” George commented, trying to imagine a smaller, teenage version of Matty, and laughing a little in response.

“Yeah.” Matty smiled back, giving way to a sigh. “I came out to him. This morning. Fuck...” She cursed. “Feels like the whole world’s happened today.”

George smiled. “What did he say?”

“Pretty much absolutely nothing. It was so weird. Like… it really just didn’t matter. And he told me he’d already guessed, and I mean, really how effeminate am I?” Matty wasn’t really sure whether that was supposed to be a rhetorical question or not.

George gave way to a smile. “Well you were wearing lipstick earlier.” Matty blushed, bringing her fingers up to her lips. “Why did you wipe it off? Looked good.” He added, doing the worst kind of things to Matty’s insides.

“I didn’t…” Matty trailed off, wiping at her lips in confusion. 

“Well it got wiped off somehow.” George gave way to a shrug, offering Matty a lazy kind of smile.

It was then that Matty realised why. And her heart dropped to the pit of her stomach. “I sucked someone off earlier. That’s why.”

George’s eyes grew wide, wondering just at what point in her day Matty had found time to go around giving blowjobs. 

“Oh.” He muttered, finding that it was perhaps all he could say.

Matty didn’t elaborate further, instead she reached into her jacket pocket for her lipstick and made her way over to the mirror on the other side of George’s room: hastily applying the lipstick, as neatly as she could with George watching her from across the room.

“Suits you.” George commented, meeting her with a smile as she sat herself back down beside him - somehow closer than ever before.

“Thanks.” Matty smiled, her cheeks heating up to a colour to rival the bright red of her lips.

“It was weird.” She began again, pushing away the silence that had settled in around them. It was, of course, the only thing on the both of their minds, and Matty had never been a prude, or had any kind of common sense. 

“What?” George asked like he didn’t already know.

“The blowjob.” Matty spelled it out for him: bright red lips fitting around the word in way that could drive anyone dizzy.

“What do you mean?” He thought for a moment, wondering just how they’d come to such a subject quite so casually.

“This is going to make me sound all kinds of fucked up, like I have serious issues, and fuck, maybe I do, but… I really kind of like sucking dick. Like… it’s sort of therapeutic. Maybe therapeutic is the wrong word. But like, calming…  _ grounding _ . Being fucked as well. Like… not even just sex in general, but I don’t know…” Matty gave way to a laugh. “Taking a dick.”

George thought for a moment, trying to focus solely on the words leaving Matty’s lips and not the images they tempted him to concoct. “Like… the whole submissive side of things? Having someone else being in control?”

“Yeah.” Matty thought for a moment, figuring that had to make her sound even weirder, but still, George didn’t seem to mind. “Like… yeah… like you don’t have to think about anything or worry, because you’re just… like someone else has got you. Even though they really haven’t and there’s nothing nurturing about being balls deep in someone’s ass, but… yeah.”

“It is a bit… unconventional, but I get where you’re coming from.” And Matty thought that George was so unconditionally understanding that he just had to be taking the piss now.

“Yeah.” Matty continued regardless. “It wasn’t like that today. It was weird. It kind of made me feel sick. Not even physically, I mean it… I mean… it sort of did, but that wasn’t the issue, like I’ve sucked loads of dick before, that wasn’t the issue, it was just… it didn’t feel good. It made me feel weird. Like it was all wrong.”

“Can you think why?” George stopped and thought for a moment.

“I think he loves me.” The words left Matty’s lips without warning. “The guy. He’s Charlie. We have… a sort of…  _ thing _ .” Matty felt her stomach twisting into knots at the notion of directly telling George she had a boyfriend.

“And you don’t love him?” George asked, stumbling over his words a little.

“Sometimes I don’t even think I  _ like _ him. He’s just… he’s just a person, and his flat is just a place, and his dick’s just a dick. And it makes me sound…  _ so  _ shallow, but sometimes you need someone, you need somewhere. And he helps with that. I don’t know if I can… keep lying to myself anymore, but I’m convinced I  _ need _ him, that I  _ need _ that. But I don’t. I just want it. I don’t  _ need _ to feel loved, I just so desperately want it.”

“Matty, look, if he’s making you unhappy then you shouldn’t… be with him anymore, alright?” George felt like he was suddenly so very under qualified with any kind of advice he could possibly offer.

“We had an argument.” Matty continued, letting out a sigh. “After the blowjob. Because I felt like shit, I just… sort of sat there for a while, in a bit of a state, and he thought he’d done something, and I told him he hadn’t, and then… he was pissed that I was taking my shit out on him, and then… then I just stormed out. And when I did he sort of looked at me and laughed, asking where I could possibly go, because I told him about what had happened with Gemma just before, and he knows how shit is at home. That made me feel weird.”

George opened his mouth to speak but Matty didn’t quite let him continue.

“I don’t know why I came here. Honestly I… I thought everything was fucked between me and you, but I’m so thankful it’s not, and you’re… ridiculous, you know? Keeping listening to me, through all my shit, and honestly, George, I don’t think I could ever thank you enough.”

And George started to cry again. For the third time that day.

Funnily enough, so did Matty. And the two sat there, practically curled up together - two pathetic, weeping idiots, somehow treasuring each other above all.

They watched that movie in the end. In the late afternoon, with mugs of tea, and stupid amounts of chocolate that George had pulled out of the back of the cupboards. And with each other, far too close, but still so distant.

She thought about what Charlie would say if he could see her now. See them now. And she knew it was wrong. She knew it was fucked. But she decided that she didn’t care, because if there was anything that really mattered to her in that moment, it was George. Without a question. Without a doubt.

And as the room grew dark, and the day faded away, Matty sat and thought about the empty walls, and all that she’d done. And wondered if she could just ever really fix it.

-

“For  _ fuck’s _ sake…”

George drew his eyes open slowly - as if a part of him was just so very terrified to let the morning let in, to let the world in, and to break the illusion of safety and perfection that had sank in around him last night.

Adjusting his eyes to the early morning light, he blinked rapidly, his vision blurring and fading out of focus despite his every desperate effort to properly fixate on the figure in the doorway - the one who had uttered the three words to wake him from his sleep.

“George…” The figure tried again, stepping a little way closer. It was as George managed to connect the voice to a person, that everything faded into focus; George lay there, blinking slowly at Ross, who was for some reason in his room on a Sunday morning.

“Ross…” George stumbled to sit up, attempting to get a better grasp on his situation as fast as he could. It was as he attempted to do so, however, that he became very aware of what had brought Ross’ first three words to be. As unavoidably, and so very plainly, beside him lay Matty - still fast asleep and curled up into his chest.

“Fuck…” George trailed off, his eyes growing wide as he just stared at Matty for a moment.

“You forgot, didn’t you?” Ross’ tone was perhaps just far too nonchalant for the situation - spiked with a little dash of irritance, but it was almost as if he had expected this, well, eventually, at least.

“Huh?” George groaned, looking hazily between Matty and Ross.

“Those plans we ran over at least  _ twenty _ times, George. About going into the city, you know? Early train ride, you know? Those plans we made like three weeks ago. Those plans that even your  _ mum _ remembers, seeing as she let me in on her way out. But those plans…” Ross glanced down at Matty, who had somehow managed to sleep through their whole conversation. “You managed to forget about.”

“Fuck.” George groaned, throwing his head back down against the pillow.

“I’ll give you five minutes.” Ross rolled his eyes, making his way out of George’s room, perhaps even over-emphasising the act of closing the door behind him.

For at least the first minute, George just lay there, staring up at the ceiling regretting his entire existence. And in the still, early morning silence, he could just catch the muffled sounds of conversation from out in the landing, because of course, Ross was calling John to make fun of his situation already.

“They’re fucking  _ spooning _ !” Ross’ voice was raised, as if this was the most pressing matter in his life. George groaned.

George did try  _ not _ to listen - for his own sake, really, but if he was going to lay there and not listen to their conversation, he knew he’d have to wake Matty up, and that was just a whole other something he didn’t want to deal with.

“I don’t care if you think it’s cute, John, that’s really  _ not _ the point.”

George decided that this was his breaking point. That this was just the point in which he wanted to go back to sleep forever. And really, it wasn’t like he  _ wanted _ to cancel the plans he’d made with his friends, but suddenly, with everything that had happened yesterday, especially with Matty, he’d sort of lost his head.

He looked back across at Matty - at the soft, peaceful look to her, with curls strewn out freely, and eyelids flickering slightly, and pink lips parted just a little way. George then looked at the way Matty’s back was pressed firmly against his chest, and the way he had managed to curl his body in around Matty’s. He let out a deep sigh, because really, Ross was right.

It had been a bit hazy last night; he wasn’t exactly sure how they’d gone from watching a movie together to falling asleep in each other’s arms. George then took a moment to remind himself that this wasn’t even the first time this had happened. He thought back to Gemma’s house - to the spare room, and to the odd nonchalance Matty had regarded it all with. 

George then wondered if this really meant anything at all, or if it was just them - they’d both been in enough of a state yesterday to need a bit of a cuddle, after all. George then wondered if he was just making excuses. Just buying himself time before facing Matty, and then, inevitability, Ross again.

Matty stirred without George’s help in the end, rolling over onto her back and accidentally elbowing George in the ribs, eliciting a rather loud groan from George as he struggled to pull away from Matty, rubbing his side in an attempt to relieve some of the pain. 

Matty looked up at him with wide blinking eyes; as George had struggled to sit himself up again, he’d sort of ended up half hovering over Matty.

“Sorry.” She met George with a lazy kind of early morning smile. “That hurt, didn’t it?” She fell into a breathy kind of giggle, shutting her eyes again for just a second. 

When she opened them again, George was no longer above her, but sat up against the wall - hair sticking up in all directions, and that distant kind of look in his eyes that told Matty he really was craving a cigarette.

“It’s alright.” He promised her, instinctively rubbing his side a little bit.

George sat and watched her for a moment, wondering just when Matty might acknowledge the fact that they were in bed together - that they’d fallen asleep, pressed closer together than he’d even thought possible. It didn’t seem like she was going to, though, and really it was far too early for George to properly think about that and what it could possibly mean.

“Were you awake for any of that?” He asked - admittedly a little astounded as to how she’d managed to sleep through the whole of the mini fit Ross had thrown.

She gave a nod, stretching her arms out up towards the headboard. “I’ve been awake longer than you have.”

George widened his eyes at that. “You what?”

“Not for like hours, but for like twenty minutes. Just thought you’d be better to deal with Ross walking in like that, I mean… I don’t really know him all that well. I didn’t want to make it any more awkward for him.” Matty ran a hand back through her hair, pondering their situation - she knew well just how it had came to be, but she still couldn’t quite grasp what it was inside of the both of them that had let it happen.

“You’re the worst.” George told her. 

Matty didn’t respond, only got to her feet, stretching a little as she made it across George’s room, before stumbling off into the bathroom. George was at least pleased to see, through the open door, that Ross had moved from the landing finally. Still, he had very little idea as to what he was going to do in regards to their situation as a whole.

After a moment or two, he pulled himself out of bed, staring down at last night’s clothes, and deciding he should probably try and get dressed while Matty was out of the room. He changed into a marginally different, slightly cleaner pair of jeans, and pulled the first shirt he saw over his head, taking a moment to contemplate the state of his life in general, before he really found the time to look around him.

There’d been something off since he’d woken up, but amidst the mess that was everything else, he hadn’t quite been able to place it. It was then, however, that his eyes fell over the walls, on the photographs laid back upon them - every single one.

He stood there, flat-out astounded, heart beginning to hammer in his chest, as he took in each and every wall, and each and every photo. Finally, he drew his gaze to the open drawer at his desk - the one in which he’d stashed the photos, beside his lighter, his shitty little polaroid camera, and a little bag of weed right at the back of the drawer. However, as George approached it, he found that it wasn’t quite so empty anymore.

Left beside his lighter, was a note in an all too familiar scrawled handwriting. George reached for it, heart pounding inside his chest.

_ ‘It was me, wasn’t it? That made you feel shit. Not the memories. It was me. You don’t have to lie to yourself - you don’t have to lie to me. I’m sorry. You mean so much to me. Today meant so much to me. I can only wish that you’d feel the same… XX’ _

George glanced back down at the drawer, and beside his lighter, previously hidden beneath the note, was a photo - taken on the camera, just like the others, but instantly so very different, so very real, something that meant more to George than anything ever had before.

Scrawled in the space beneath the picture, were two words and a kiss - in the same handwriting, conveying more in just a handful of letters than George could ever begin to imagine.

_ ‘I’m sorry. X’ _

But the apology meant nothing close to as much as the picture itself.

It was taken late last night, perhaps in the early nighttime hours of morning - depicting him in bed, curled up, and likely asleep, and then Matty beside him, pressed up against his chest, but with one arm stretched out to take the picture.

George put the letter back into the drawer and closed it again, taking the photo in his hand, and tacking it up onto the wall, away from everything else - away from the pictures of his friends, away from the pictures of his old girlfriends. This was something else entirely. So George placed it somewhere new, in a world of its own, up on the wall near the window, where he could see it perfectly as he lay in bed.

But George didn’t say a word when Matty finally got back from the bathroom - face all made up, and hair tied up elegantly. After all, he didn’t think a single word could ever be enough.

-

And George just didn’t stop smiling. Even as the five of them sat and endured the most awkward breakfast of their lives. George sat there without a doubt that Ross had told John and Adam his own assumptions about what had happened between him and Matty last night in levels of detail that George couldn’t even imagine, but still, it didn’t manage to bother him at all.

Even as Adam continued to shoot him odd, almost emotionally dead looks as he sat there and ate his toast. Even as he couldn’t help but wonder just what it was that Ross had actually told him in the end, and just what that left Adam to think about him.

Even as John vaguely asked Matty how she was, and Matty began to relay her whole life story to the five of them. George zoned out, having heard it all before, and watched the amused looks on his friends’ faces - they liked Matty, at least. He reckoned it could be worse - Ross could have found him in bed with someone all three of them hated.

Even as George began to wonder if Ross thought they’d had sex. Even as the worst kind of thoughts began to creep out of nowhere, and he found himself looking at Matty in a way he couldn’t quite describe.

Even as Adam playfully pointed out the fact that Matty was wearing George’s jumper. Something George had been yet to notice himself. Still, it made him smile more. And it made Matty blush too at least. He reckoned he liked seeing Matty blush more than he dared to admit.

Even as Ross casually invited Matty to spend the day with them, and Matty politely declined with a waffly explanation of getting home. And still, even as John invited Matty to the party they were planning on going to that Friday - something George hadn’t managed to forget about amidst this all. 

Even as Matty pulled her lips into a grin and agreed.

Even as George’s stomach filled with an almost nauseating cluster of butterflies, he looked across at Matty, and physically couldn’t stop himself from smiling. 

He wondered if he’d really lost his mind last night, but for this, George decided he just didn’t want it back.

-


	7. sometimes george makes bad life choices too

“He  _ is _ . He is your type.”

They were sat out at the back of John’s garden, smoking away a pack of cigarettes between the two of them, as they sat hidden away behind the shrubbery. The world was fading away around them into dull tones and decaying browns, and George sat there feeling such a statement reflected not just the season him, but something trapped up inside of him too. 

George flashed a look reminiscent of that of a petulant child. “He’s not my type. I don’t even have a type, and even if I did, why would it be…  _ Matty _ ?”

John smiled: entirely too amused by this all. “Because you like him. And if you’re so head over heels for him, he  _ must _ be your type.”

“Who said anything about being head over heels?” George exclaimed, burying his face into the palm of his hand as he let out a breathy kind of defeated groan. “I don’t, John,  _ come on _ .”

“You were the one who wanted to talk about him.” John made a point of reminding him.

“Yeah, just because he’s all I can think about doesn’t mean I’m in love with him or anything.” Anyone would have thought George was being entirely satirical, if not for the deadly serious tone to his voice. 

John just stared at him in disbelief.

“What?” George blushed, doing all he could to defend himself.

“You do.” John told him, knowingly.

“I do what?” George uttered perhaps too slowly, as if he dreaded John’s response.

“Fancy him.” John supplied - like it was simple, like it was easy. When for George, it was perhaps anything but. “You absolutely fucking fancy him.”

“I-”

“ _ Come on _ .” John grinned across at him. “We both know it.”

George breathed a desperate sigh, wishing things could make anywhere near as much sense up in his own head.

“Well maybe…” George trailed off, gesturing wildly with his hands. “Okay, you know it. But I don’t. I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on in my head, I don’t know what any of this  _ means _ . They’re like…  _ feelings _ , but like new feelings, and… I don’t know what to do with them.”

John raised his eyebrows. “What’s new about them then? What are they like?”

“Different.” George declared: finding it to be perhaps the only thing he could utter with any sort of confidence.

“How?” John thought for a moment, attempting to infer the mess George had left between his words. “Like… different to…  _ girls _ ? Like when you had crushes on girls… it feels different to that?”

“Yeah.” George gave a nod, taking a drag of his cigarette in a desperate attempt to clear his head. “That’s why it can’t be a crush, because it doesn’t feel like a crush. I’ve had loads of crushes in my life - I know what having a crush feels like. This doesn’t feel like that.”

John stopped himself, taking a brief few moments to think. “But those were all crushes on girls?”

“Yeah, but does it make any difference?” George let out an exasperated kind of sigh: sounding entirely too caught up in his own mess.

“I don’t know.” John gave a shrug. “I’ve only had proper crushes on boys. Maybe you should go and talk to someone who’s bi or something.”

“Yeah, where exactly am I going to just find a bisexual, like off the street or something?” George snorted, detracting from the slightly more serious nature of their conversation. “Doesn’t seem likely. Look, John, I’m not going to go parading around screaming about my stupid fucking feelings. I’m not even going to talk to Ross about this - he’s far too smug about it all. Like he  _ knew,  _ or something. It’s unnerving.”

“Well…” John trailed off, grinning a little. “We did… not be  _ weird _ , or anything, but me and Ross got drunk once and made a bet over who would turn out to be the least straight between you and Adam.”

George grimaced, his eyes blown wide the very moment he’d put it all together. “And you went for  _ Adam _ ?”

“Yeah.” John gave a nod. “I went for Adam.”

George was almost offended. He couldn’t quite figure out as to why or how. But he knew for certain that he was. That this was outrageous, ridiculous - just plain stupid.

“You went for  _ Adam _ .” George repeated, like he still couldn’t quite believe it. “You went for the guy who will leave the room, not even the room, but the  _ house _ , the fucking house- when even  _ girls _ start showing off the weird dick pics they got from gross guys on Snapchat.”

“Yeah.” John continued, still adamant in his choice. “Adam.”

“John, you’re fucking stupid.” George always made effort to be the most polite and courteous friend he could be. John only snorted.

“Why’s that?” He couldn’t help but inquire.

“Well, for a start.” George could sort of feel that what he was about to say was almost definitely a bad idea, but still, he just couldn’t quite help himself. “This morning, I had a wank-”

“ _ George _ .” John let out a groan - he’d rather not be scarred for life if he could help it.

“No, it’s an important wank. It was… sort of emotionally harrowing. It was a weird wank. Not like  _ physically _ weird, but just… you know…” George stopped himself for a moment, taking some time just to smoke and think, and really reassess just what he was about to so calmly offer up to John.

“Do you ever like have a wank, and like stop yourself, because suddenly you’re like  _ thinking _ about the fact that you’re wanking, and then it’s kind of weird somehow?” John looked at George like he really wasn’t far off madness. “No, okay? Well… I… started thinking about whether other people wanked differently to me. It was a weird… oddly existential wank. And then… I sort of… I don’t know how it happened really, but I started thinking about…  _ Matty _ .”

John’s eyes grew wide. “While you were touching your dick? Literally mid wank?”

“Mid  _ existential _ wank, yes.” George gave way to a sigh. “I started thinking about Matty. I started thinking about how he’d wank, like I feel like if there was going to be anyone that wanked weirdly, it was going to be Matty, and I think maybe this isn’t just the kind of shit you can get drunk and ask someone - I don’t think we’ve reached that level yet.”

John really did wonder if he’d ever heard anything more blatantly gay in his life.

“And it did feel a bit weird, so I did  _ try _ to stop thinking about Matty, so I started thinking about some random girl, or whatever, you know usual shit, and then… then that… turned into me wondering what Matty thought about when he got off. And somehow I managed to be narcissistic enough to wonder if that ever might be me. But I feel like Matty’s wanked over everyone he’s ever held a conversation with in his life. But… like… Matty… getting off over me… like… Matty thinking about me touching his dick… like… that’s… that did  _ things _ .”

“Oh my god.” John widened his eyes in utter disbelief. “You came because you started thinking about touching Matty’s dick- George, I-”

“ _ No _ .” George shook his head, cheeks flushing red. “I started thinking about Matty thinking about me touching his dick. There’s a difference.”

“Is there?” John wasn’t quite so sure.

“Yeah.” George gave a nod. “I think it’s… the idea that Matty would be attracted to me, that I find more… appealing, than the physical idea of actually touching his dick. I mean, I think dicks are kind of gross.”

“Everyone thinks that about all genitalia. There’s nothing sexy about the average dick or vagina-” George couldn’t help but laugh at the way John was unable to help himself from going red. “It’s about… it’s the person it’s attached to.”

“Yeah.” George gave a nod. “That does make sense.”

John gave George a questioning stare. “You’re attracted to the idea of Matty being attracted to you, because you’re attracted to him. You’re just not entirely comfortable with the idea of that yet.”

George shook his head. “I don’t like guys, John. Like, you get to a point, and you just sort of  _ know _ , and you- it’s sort of really just… Matty. Not that I really- fuck, I don’t know, alright, John? I don’t know.”

“That’s fine.” John assured him. “No one says that you have to.”

“I want to know though.” George gave way to a sigh. “I… I think there’s something… there  _ emotionally _ , but… I don’t know about… because… I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?” John watched him for a moment: sensing that there could be more to George’s story until the end of time itself.

“He put the pictures back up. On my bedroom walls. I didn’t ask him to. I just woke up one morning and he had. And he left this note, this apology, like he was the reason I took them down, and he kind of wasn’t, kind of was. But it was like… it was like ‘I’m sorry. You mean so much to me’. He put kisses on the end even.”

“Oh…” John’s eyes grew wide.

“It reminds me of… one of my old girlfriends used to leave me notes like that when I was sad or when we’d fought or something. And I’d do the same for her, like… you know soppy stupid notes and shit. Like… Matty’s note… it made me feel like I had with those. And I was  _ so _ in love with her. And I think… maybe I’m a bit in love with Matty, just a little bit, but like emotionally… I think it’s when I start to think about the fact that he’s a boy that everything just gets complicated.”

“If you love him, then should it matter?” John posed a question, and really, George just didn’t even know.

“Because, what do I do? If I  _ am _ straight, but I feel like that about him, like okay that doesn’t make the most sense, but… like… I don’t know… like if I have feelings for him, and he has feelings for me, but I’m into  _ girls _ , and like physically, it just wouldn’t work. Because that fucks with my head.” George let out a sigh. “It’s not like it’s even his  _ dick _ . Like… it’s just… femininity. I think… I am a bit attracted to him because he’s a bit feminine, but he’s a boy… but- it’s all just fucking with my head, honestly.”

“Honestly, you’re going to punch me for suggesting this, but  _ talk _ to him. Tell him how you feel.” John watched George for a moment, as really he did look awfully close to punching him, but George managed to restrain himself.

“And maybe it doesn’t matter anyway, because he’s got… there’s this guy, called Charlie. And they’re sort of… they’ve got a  _ thing _ , and… yeah, they’ve been arguing quite a bit lately, but I shouldn’t step in and make things worse for them.” 

“I think you’re just making excuses.” John reached a rather bold conclusion.

George’s eyes widened. “You what? I think… I think I’m just doing the decent thing, like… if he’s already got  _ someone _ , then-”

“If he’s already got  _ someone _ then why is he spooning you? Why is he leaving you sappy notes with kisses on the end?” John raised a very good point. “Don’t you think that means something? And that it’s maybe something to do with the reason why he’s not getting on well with this guy. Maybe because he wants you. Maybe he doesn’t want to admit it either. Why do you think things are like this?”

George didn’t quite know what to say to that one at all, instead he went for perhaps the only thing he could say.

“Because he’s  _ Matty _ . That’s why. That’s what he does.”

“Does he?” John raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah. He falls in love with everyone off the street. He told me himself. It’s nothing special. It’s just us. It’s just the way it is.”

-

“That’s just how things  _ happen _ .”

He laughed it off like it was obvious. Like she was stupid. Like this was something she should have felt guilty about. As if the four walls closing in on her were really nothing more than a warm embrace.

But she couldn’t make herself look at things that way anymore.

It was all wrong.

“Doesn’t mean it’s how they should.” Matty shook her head, taking a step back and pressing herself against the cold glass of the window. 

Part of her yearned for the world outside, even for the cold air that would surely chill her down to the bone. It had to be better than this. Better than long stares: eternal gazes constructed only out of habit, and a bitter nothingness shared between the two of them.

“It doesn’t  _ mean _ anything, sweetheart.” He assured her, taking a step closer, pulling out the pet names - he was doing all he could to stop her from walking out of that door, and this time around, she knew it.

“It means something to me.” She uttered, turning away and casting her gaze out through the window and across the town, across the thousands of people below, and stood there and wondered what kinds of lives each and everyone of them lived. She wondered if they were happy. She wondered if she was too.

“I love you.” Charlie grew desperate, approaching her by the window, sharing her gaze like it was something he deserved - like all that was hers was his too. Like they had anything real between them, like everything had been given and not stolen. Like his words had ever bore any meaning.

Matty didn’t say anything to that.

She wanted to tell him that he was wrong. That it wasn’t true. She sure as hell felt so in her heart. But it wasn’t her place to tell someone that they didn’t love her.

They waited in silence for a while instead.

Matty knew he was waiting on the ‘I love you too’. Matty knew he would be waiting for quite a while.

“Babe…” He trailed off, reaching for her hand: holding it tight and grasping it against his.

Matty shook her head, squirming in his grasp. “Why did you- why are we- Charlie…” She drew out a sigh, turning and meeting him face on. “It’s not my fault that I left. It’s not my fault that I’m unhappy. I… don’t… this isn’t you… this is… I don’t want this anymore.”

“What did I  _ ever _ do to you?” Charlie took a step back - utterly astounded. “I was  _ always _ there. I  _ always _ loved you. I  _ always _ took you in. I  _ always _ listened. I  _ always _ kissed you. I was  _ always _ there. Who else could do that for you?” He didn’t give her chance to think about that, let alone respond. “No one else can do that for you.”

Matty shook her head, offering him a small smile, formed solely out of the desire to be polite. “I don’t. I don’t want that anymore. You’re… helping in the short term, but not… not in the long term. I need to get better by myself. And the arguments make things worse, and we-... this doesn’t feel right anymore.”

“What do you mean?” Charlie grasped her hand tighter, as if he feared that she might fade away right between his fingertips. “What  _ does _ this feel like then?  _ Wrong _ ? Is this what wrong feels like?” He leaned in and kissed her.

Matty let him.

She let her head fall back against the wall, let his body slot around his, let his weight press down on hers in time to his lips, let everything fade away under strong arms and soft lips.

But she didn’t let herself respond.

She stood there, still, motionless, and felt him attempt to make life out of that, to make love out of them - something out of nothing, to turn ashes back into flame.

“Yeah.” She uttered as he finally pulled away, studying her with long hopeless eyes. “That’s what wrong feels like.”

“Kiss me back.” Charlie pleaded, pushing her back against the wall. “Just tell me what your point is, tell me what you’re trying to prove, for fuck’s sake. I’ll listen, I’ll listen to anything. I’ll- just stop this, I hate this- what are you doing? Just kiss me back… Matty, please.”

She shook her head. “I don’t love you.”

He pulled away, taking a step back and studying her gaze like she was insane. Like he couldn’t believe it. Like he couldn’t believe her. Like the Matty stood before him was an entirely different person to the Matty he’d first met at the club. And in some respects, she was.

“I never did.” Matty added: her voice slow, tentative.

Charlie’s fist hit the wall.

The whole room seemed to shake against the impact.

She watched motionlessly from where she stood frozen across the room. She wondered what would have happened if she hadn’t given him time to pull away first - where that fist would have went in that case.

Matty swallowed hard.

“You can’t just-” Charlie paced across the room, burying his head in his hands. “You can’t just  _ do  _ that to people. Play with their emotions. Make them  _ love _ you. I  _ love _ you, Matty. I care about you, and you- what the fuck even was this for you then?”

Matty paused for a moment, daring not to take one step away from the wall, valuing the distance between her and Charlie with her life.

“You said you’d do that for me.”

“Do what?” He snapped, stopping in his tracks and properly facing her. “Perpetuate your ego, your need to drain people until there’s nothing left?”

“You let me be your girlfriend.” She brought them back to that first weekend. Back to when things had been okay. “Because I needed that. To be someone’s girlfriend.”

“You do. You need that.” He appeared desperate to convince her as such.

“Not anymore.” She shook her head. “It… feels wrong now. All wrong.”

“Matty…” Charlie drew a sigh, making his way across the room, with something gentler about him this time around. “Matty…” He met her gaze. “I love you, princess-  _ please _ . I can do that for you, I can do whatever you want me to. I’ll let you be my girlfriend, I’ll let you be my whole world-”

Matty knew that wasn’t true.

And even if it had been, she wouldn’t have wanted it anyway.

“It’s not… I’m not… like that anymore.”

“What?” Charlie  _ needed _ to know. “You’re not what anymore? Not my girlfriend? Not mine? Or just not a  _ girl _ anymore. Was this all just some  _ act _ to shock me, to get my attention, to play me. To play a part. To be the  _ girlfriend _ .”

“No.” Matty shook her head, tears welling in her eyes. “Fuck, I don’t know, I-”

“What?” Charlie demanded, growing tired, growing so very  _ over _ this all.

“It doesn’t feel right anymore.”

“What doesn’t feel right anymore?” His words grew more bitter by the second.

“Anything.” Matty let out a sigh: exasperated, so tired, so very tired of all of this.

“Why’s that?” Charlie raised his eyebrows. “You think that’s because of  _ me _ . You think  _ I’ve _ singlehandedly ruined your whole life- for fuck’s sake, Matty-”

“No.” She shook her head, cutting into his words. “It’s my fault. I went about everything all wrong. It’s all my fault. And I’m sorry that you got dragged into things, but that’s just the way things happened. I can’t be your girlfriend anymore. It doesn’t feel right. I can’t be  _ anyone’s _ girlfriend anymore. It just doesn’t feel right.”

“So I was right…” Charlie trailed off. “You are just  _ some _ guy-”

“I’m- no. It’s not like that.” Matty gave way to a sigh. “I can’t be anyone’s  _ boyfriend _ either. I’m not. That doesn’t feel right either. Neither of the two either really did. I was just desperate, and… being a girl, felt better than being a boy, so I went for it, I grasped it with all I had and just hoped for the best, but-... I wanted to be like those perfect girls with perfect lives, so happy, so in love with everything, with the whole world. But they’re not happy because they’re  _ girls _ , they’re happy because they’re happy. And that sounds obvious now, but-”

“You can’t just not be a boy or a girl- you’ve-” Charlie seemed to struggle with the mere concept.

“But I’m not. I’m somewhere in between, like a bit of a both, like… and…” Matty gave way to a laugh. “Like it’s everyone like you that would say things like that. That was what made me unsure. But like, you’re just some  _ guy _ , you’re- it doesn’t fucking  _ matter _ , what you think… I don’t  _ care _ .”

“No one’s going to love you like that. No one’s going to  _ understand _ , Matty.” Charlie shook his head. “Come on, I know you. I love you. Come on, sit down, come on, stay. Let’s  _ talk _ about this. I’m  _ sorry _ . Make me understand.”

“I don’t  _ care _ , Charlie. I don’t want you anymore, I don’t want this-”

“Matty, babe,  _ please _ .” He gave way to a sigh. “You can’t just be…  _ someone _ to me. I don’t want this to be the end. I don’t want to never see you again. You can’t just- Give me a chance like this. Give us a chance like this, and you can be… not my girlfriend, not my boyfriend, but whatever you want to be- whatever  _ fits _ in your head. Give it a chance,  _ please _ -”

“Alright.” Matty decided, falling into a smile. “I won’t be your girlfriend, I won’t be your boyfriend, so instead I’ll be your nothing. We’re nothing. That fits.”

“ _ Please _ , I’m  _ trying _ -...” Charlie gave way to a sigh. “Just… talk to me for a minute, please. Let me understand this. Let me understand you. How does this even work? All this…  _ nothing _ .”

“It’s not nothing.” Matty dared to take a step closer to him. “It’s like… it’s like there’s red and blue. I’m the colour purple. A more reddish purple. But that doesn’t make it red. And certainly not blue. It’s in the middle. It’s a mix of the two. Because I don’t think gender is really supposed to make sense, because it’s just a spectrum, because it’s just a mess, and I think it’s just about calling yourself what makes you feel comfortable, being who you really are.”

“So what do you want me to call you?” Charlie barely managed to push the words out.

“I think maybe I’m a they not a she. I don’t know. I guess I’ll have to see how it feels.” Matty offered up a simple smile.

“How did you know? When did you realise?” Charlie begged for them to continue, for Matty to stay, until everything began to make sense again.

“When things with you stopped feeling right.” Matty told him rather plainly. Perhaps that wasn’t how things should have gone down, but there was no changing what had already left their lips.

“But that’s- that’s just our  _ relationship _ , that’s not your gender, is it?” Charlie looked at across at Matty like they were truly mad. “How can you fucking come to that conclusion from that-”

“Our ‘relationship’ was  _ always _ about my gender. It always about proving it to myself, it was  _ always _ about making it feel right.” Matty shot him a look, deciding that they just didn’t care anymore.

“How is that  _ fair _ ?” Charlie got to his feet, watching with wide eyes as Matty made their way towards the door. “You  _ used _ me. How is that fair at all?”

“Like you haven’t used me too. Come on, Charlie, I’m not  _ stupid _ .” Matty stopped and watched him for a moment, perhaps even offering him a look of pity across from the door.

“You’re being stupid if you seriously think leaving this, leaving  _ me _ is going to help this at all-”

“Shut up.” Matty rolled their eyes. “Watch me. Watch me leave. Watch it be the smartest thing I’ve ever done.”

“You’ll come back.” Charlie yelled after them, catching their gaze for just a brief moment. “I  _ know _ you will.”

And Matty didn’t think anyone had ever been more wrong, because in that moment they knew themself more than they ever had, and if they could ever be certain of anything, it was this.

Everything felt right. Matty felt alive. For the first time in their life. On top. Of the world. Happy. Like nothing good would ever end. Infinite. Perfect. Forever. The kind of blissful drunk they always craved, but finally found completely sober.

-

The feeling carried out for the rest of the day. Right from the moment Matty stepped off Charlie’s doorstep to the moment they ended up on George’s.

That was when everything stopped. Or at least everything came to its peak, and dropped back down again. As Matty found themselves, wide-eyed, and honestly terrified as they faced George’s front door.

They wanted to turn back. To hide away. But that was how it had all happened last time. That was where Charlie had come from. And the last thing Matty needed right now was another Charlie. And there wasn’t the slightest chance in hell that they’d offer him the satisfaction of abiding to his prediction, and coming right back.

Instead, Matty swallowed their pride. Swallowed everything they had left of themself and looked the epitome of everything straight in the eye. They held their breath as they pressed their finger against the doorbell, and tried to curl up back inside themself as the sound of footsteps inside grew louder and louder as they approached the door.

Really, it was a good thing that it was George who answered the door, as immediately Matty pretty much flung themself at him without a moment’s thought.

“Hey…” George stumbled backwards a little: finding that the sudden impact of Matty burying themself against his chest was not something he could have expected. “You alright?”

“Been better.” Matty gave a sigh, taking a breath before finally pulling away.

George offered them a smile, coming to terms with the fact that he could just never wish to know exactly what was on Matty’s mind. “Come on.” He gestured. “Do you want a cup of tea?”

Matty grinned, shutting the front door behind them. “Alright then.”

Despite the urgency the matter seemed to have commended itself with just mere minutes ago, Matty found themself sat idly on the sofa with George: half-listening to the recount of his day as they began to sip on their tea.

“So…” George gave a sigh, placing his cup of tea back down onto the coffee table. “What about you? Don’t even try and tell me that there isn’t something up. You’re not just  _ that _ excited to see me.”

“But I  _ am _ .” Matty persisted, giving way to a laugh as they took placed their mug down onto the coffee table. George rolled his eyes at them, shook his head and tutted, before sliding a coaster under the mug. Matty snorted.

“Shut up.” George let out a sigh. “You nearly knocked me over as well, fucking ran at me basically.”

“Sorry.” Matty offered up a smile. “I needed a hug.”

George grinned. “Alright.” He certainly wasn’t one to complain.

“And we need to talk.” Matty gave way to a sigh: knowing they couldn’t put it off any longer. “Like  _ really _ need to talk. And it’s just… things have happened, today especially. And you need to know. I’m scared to tell you, fucking course I am, but it’s- I think we’re… I think we’ll be alright.”

“Is this…?” George trailed off, his eyes growing wide as he struggled to even consider the possibility.

“The  _ thing _ .” Matty added, doing a great job of making it all sound so unnecessarily foreboding. “Yeah.” They gave a nod.

“Oh…” George focused on just breathing for a good minute. A part of him had been so very convinced that this would never happen, that they’d never quite get here at all.

“Me and Charlie broke up.” Matty was quite sure where to begin, and in the end went for the first place that came to their mind. “That’s not the thing.” They added, blushing a little. “That’s just… the… yeah… me and Charlie broke up today.”

George watched Matty for a moment, not entirely sure what to think at all. “I didn’t think you and Charlie were…  _ together _ like… properly.”

Matty couldn’t help but blush. They gave a shrug. “It was a bit… complicated… messy… I don’t know. But I… I guess he was my boyfriend.”

“What?” George’s eyes grew wide. “What while you and me were fucking spooning- I mean- I-...”

“George…” Matty held their whole world between their teeth.

“Matty…” George held his breath, attempting to settle his head for just a moment. “It’s just… fuck- is that why you broke up? God, please don’t say that he found out you and me were like… a bit…  _ cuddly _ and-”

“No.” Matty shook their head. “I broke up with him. It didn’t feel right anymore. It never really did. I thought I  _ needed _ him, but I was wrong. I just-... I thought I needed him but I didn’t love him- I don’t think I ever loved him. You know I’m not good with relationships. I’ve never been, I-... I guess. I guess it was just easier to put everything into him. To have that one person to fuck, to have that one flat to stay in.”

Matty could feel George looking at them like he never had before.

“I’m not the person you thought I was?” Matty raised an eyebrow, leaning back against the sofa.

“I…” George didn’t quite know what to make of it. “I feel a bit weird.”

“Fucking so do I.” Matty let out an entirely falsified laugh. “Come on, you’ve known me and Charlie have never been good-”

“But I never knew you were  _ together _ -”

“Why does it matter?” Matty let out a sigh, burying their head in their hands. “Anyway. We’re not anymore. Because I used him and he used me. And he threw a fit when I said I was leaving, and tried to kiss me too many times. And I let him. I didn’t kiss him back. I just let him kiss me. I kind of wondered how far he’d go if I let him. But then he stormed away and I told him I didn’t love him. That I never did. And then he punched the wall. And I wondered what would have happened if I hadn’t waited. If I hadn’t waited until he was across the room before I said it.”

George held his breath for entirely too long. “You think he would have  _ hit _ you-”

“I don’t know.” Matty shrugged, attempting to play it off like it was nothing. “It doesn’t matter anymore. He didn’t. And we’re done. It’s over.”

“I would kill him.” The words left George’s lips before he could even properly think about them. “If he punched you. If he ever touched you when you didn’t want him to. I’d kill him. I’d kill anyone that did.”

“Why?” Matty uttered, like the matter was just preposterous.

“Because you deserve better than that.” George met their eyes: holding Matty’s gaze with a look of pure conviction. “You deserve  _ so _ much better than that.”

Matty felt butterflies in their stomach like it was the first time. Like this was both the end of the world and the very beginning. The beginning of something. Something that mattered. Something with any kind of worth to hold.

“Now what else is it?” George dared to ask, to erase the distant look from Matty’s eyes, and bring them back down, away from the mess they’d gotten caught up in, and back down to the sofa, to the gentle brushing of their arms, and their two cups of tea.

“It was… Charlie was my boyfriend.” Matty trailed off, their words seeming to hold the weight of the world between their lips. “But I wasn’t his.” Matty swallowed hard, avoiding George’s gaze at all costs. “Funny thing this. I mean, just bear with me, alright? Because I was his girlfriend.”

And part of Matty yearned for a reaction, yearned for George to say  _ something _ , to do  _ something _ . Something that meant anything. Something that hurt. Something that left any kind of scar at all.

But nothing came. Just silence pressed underneath the weight of heavy thoughts.

“And I…” Matty bit their lip, wondering quite how this could all possibly sound. In the end, they decided that they’d just come too far to care. “I was his girlfriend because I was a girl. Well I thought I was a girl. I’m not anymore. Now… I’m just… between the two, you know? That’s what I’ve always been, just… you know… everyone has all these stupid fucking ideas about gender, and I was really quite desperate to fit into one of two boxes.”

Matty swallowed hard, not even daring to imagine just what George might come to think of all of this. “And there was no way that I was a boy. Like… I’m way past that point now. But I guess I finally figured things out, or at least just got the guts to accept them, that I’m just somewhere in the middle, and that I can’t do anything about that. And it’s stupid and confusing, but honestly I just want to be happy. I don’t want to have to pretend anymore.”

“So…” George’s voice was almost deathly quiet, like he was afraid to even utter a single word. “You’re like… genderqueer, like that…? Something like that?”

“Yeah.” Matty bit back a smile. “I think… I’m exactly like that.”

“Fuck…” George pulled Matty into a hug without a moment’s warning. And Matty couldn’t hold back a smile any longer as they felt George’s strong arms wrapping around them, and the weight of it all, causing them to fall back and end up splayed out across George’s lap.

“Hey…” Matty blushed, looking up at George with an almost impossibly warm look in their eyes.

“Hey.” George smiled back. “That’s okay, you know? More than okay. Perfectly fine. It’s wonderful.”

“Shut up.” Matty flushed an even deeper shade of red. “So… uhh… I’m a ‘they’, not a ‘he’, by the way.”

“Yeah, of course, that’s fine.” George assured them, suddenly coming to realise that their arm was still stretched across Matty’s chest. And then the both of them were blushing like the idiots they were.

“I mean…” George began to think, letting Matty’s gender really begin to sink in. “You were a  _ girl _ , and I… I called you ‘he’ throughout that- fuck… I- I’m sorry-”

“It’s alright. You didn’t  _ know _ .” Matty offered him a smile. “I should have told you. Gemma’s been nagging me to tell you since day one basically. And I should have, because you’re fine, of course you’re fine, you’re so stupidly nice to me all the time, even when I’m shit, even when I fuck up, even when I make bad decisions.”

“When was… day one?” George dared to ask. “When did this all begin?”

“Well… I was questioning my gender before we even knew each other, when you were just some fucking boy in a coffeeshop.” Matty ran a hand back through their hair. “But… I mean, I didn’t really come to a proper  _ conclusion _ about anything until like… I think it was the week I first came up to you, and it was, you know the most awkward conversation ever… by then I like…  _ knew _ I wasn’t a boy but I didn’t know what that meant or what to do with it. It was just this thing I was trying to ignore.”

“For that long…” George’s eyes grew wide. “So I’ve been misgendering you the whole time I’ve known you- fucking  _ hell _ .”

“It’s not your  _ fault _ .” Matty insisted, shaking their head. “And then I first sort of realised I was a girl when… that night I was at yours, you know when we first became friends, and we were sat up in your room smoking, and then I stormed out and we didn’t talk anymore. That was because I just didn’t know how to deal with it. You know, because I felt so much more comfortable being feminine, and I still do, just. Like… I’m not a  _ girl _ , like I’m just… it’s like… I’m alright with some aspects of masculinity, like my dick, I think, and I wouldn’t want boobs or anything like that. I just… you know I look and feel really good in a skirt, alright?”

“Fuck.” George wasn’t sure if he was properly breathing anymore. “I want you to feel comfortable around me. Alright? Dress how you want to dress.”

“Thanks.” Matty gave way to a grin, unable to stop themself from noticing the way George had flushed red. They snorted. “You’re thinking about me in a skirt. It’s making you  _ blush _ .”

“Matty-” George groaned, willing the situation away, but Matty wasn’t having any of it, and instead sat up, facing George directly, and even going as far as to grab him by the wrist.

“I look hot like that. Like  _ really _ hot.” Matty somehow just needed to make sure that George heard this. “You know, full face of makeup, hair done up all pretty, this short little black leather skirt, top just as tight, and heels. Never thought I’d be able to walk in heels, you know? Funny that.”

Matty could feel George’s pulse racing where their fingers curled in around his wrist.

“Bet you’d  _ love _ to fuck a girl like that. Bet anyone would. But I’m not that girl anymore. I’m not a girl anymore. I’m not just  _ there _ . Because I don’t need things like that. I don’t need fingers around my throat to breathe. I don’t need just anyone’s fucking hands on me. Because I don’t look pretty just to get fucked. I look pretty for me.”

Matty finally pulled away, falling back down onto the sofa like they’d never said a single word. 

“So I think I’m going to stop fucking random guys now. Properly this time. Like it doesn’t count if you pick a vaguely tolerable one with a nice dick and make him your ‘boyfriend’. I’m gonna stop. Maybe even get some sense of self-worth and all that? Imagine that.”

“Yeah.” George did all he could to respond the best he could, pushing words out between shaky breaths. “That’s good. I’m glad you’re happy.” He gave a glance towards the table. “Come on, your tea’s gonna get cold if you don’t drink it.”

Matty sat up and looked at George like they just might never be able to figure him out.

And they sat together in an oddly comfortable silence as Matty tried to desperately reinvent their sense of self, and George desperately tried to conceal the fact that Matty’s words alone had gotten him half way hard.

It was pathetic. Stupid. But oddly endearing. And so very them.

-

“Okay so, I kind of don’t get what the issue is here…” Adam looked around the room, catching Ross’, John’s, and George’s gazes in turn. “I mean… if Matty isn’t a boy then it doesn’t make you gay for being like massively in love with them.”

“I’m not massively in love with them.” George found that to be a point he was more than desperate to prove.

“You  _ are _ .” John deadpanned, rolling his eyes.

“So, yeah, I mean… isn’t this… like… shouldn’t you basically be over the moon right now?” Adam continued, still unable to quite catch just what had set such a sorry look into George’s eyes. It had almost appeared permanent: fixed there over the past two days.

“I just…” George trailed off, shaking his head. “It sounds stupid like properly stupid. It was just… that was this  _ thing _ , like this thing they were keeping from me, and I don’t know, I guess I got stupid enough at one point to begin to let myself think that maybe the thing they didn’t want to tell me was that they had a crush on me.”

“George, come on.” Ross let out a sigh. “You don’t think that was the only thing in the world Matty hasn’t told you? Look, it’s pretty obvious that they like you - don’t be ridiculous.”

“That’s the  _ thing _ .” George let out a groan. “I kind of began to think that for just a while, maybe because they were so affectionate with me, but then… turns out they had a boyfriend. So they weren’t treating me like that because-... they had a  _ boyfriend _ .”

“Fucking hell.” Adam’s eyes grew wide.

“Yeah.” George buried his face behind his hands.

“But they’ve broken up now?” John attempted to inspire George with even the slightest drop of hope.

“Yeah for like forty eight hours.” George rolled his eyes. 

“Still, they’ve broken up, and I mean, not to make assumptions but I’d imagine Matty might be a bit more inclined to suddenly make out with you when they’re drunk.” Ross flashed George a hopeful smile.

“So that’s why you invited them to tag along to the party.” George rolled his eyes. “Because you want to be right. You want to be able to be smug and be like, yeah, I knew Matty liked you all along-”

“No.” John shook his head. “We invited them because we’re nice people, George, don’t be ridiculous.”

Somehow, George couldn’t quite bring himself to believe him.

-

They met Matty outside. George wasn’t sure he even knew whose party this actually was - it was probably something like the cousin of the girl that Adam sort of vaguely fancied, the one with the blonde hair. George decided he wasn’t fussed though.

Really, however, it became very much impossible to fixate on anything at all the very moment Matty showed up, and to be exact, the very moment George laid eyes upon them. And to be even more precise, the knowing smirk Matty tossed him.

“Alright boys?” Matty flashed them a grin, seeming to hold all the confidence in the world.

Adam choked, eyes growing impossibly wide.

John met Matty with a smile. “You look nice.”

“Yeah…” George added, very much at a loss for words.

Because there was Matty, stood there like they held the entire world in the palm of their hands. With just the  _ very _ black leather miniskirt that they’d spoken to George about earlier that week, a white sleeveless shirt, a leather jacket, the very same black heels, their token bright red lipstick, thick black eyeliner wings, and…  _ fucking _ fishnet tights.

“Not sure if the tights were a bit much but…” Matty gave a shrug. “Don’t really care either way, I guess.”

Ross snorted. “Alright. Well I want a drink, so I mean, you’re more than welcome to stand out here for the next few hours and debate Matty’s tights, but I’m going inside.”

“Yeah, because I definitely turned up to this party to stand outside and be judged for my fashion choices.” Matty rolled their eyes, wrapping their fingers around George’s wrist and pulling him inside behind them.

George wasn’t sure he’d actually taken a single breath until they were stood on the slightly less crowded side of the house and Matty had pushed a beer into his hands.

“You look like you’ve lost it.” Matty commented, being as blunt as they always were.

George gave way to a self deprecating smile. After all, maybe Matty was right - maybe they had. They didn’t offer a response, opening the beer and taking a sip.

“Seriously, are you alright?” Matty offered George a concerned, almost nurturing kind of look, dragging him further away from the crowds.

“Yeah, I’d be fine… if...” George blushed, looking down at Matty’s fingers still curled tightly around his wrist.

Matty didn’t quite hear him properly over the music and offered a nod in his direction, and downed a shot. “Come on, do you want one? You look like you need to get drunk.”

Matty seemed perhaps overly keen to push all the alcohol in the world onto him. George didn’t want to think about just what that could possibly mean.

“I don’t…” George trailed off, catching Matty’s gaze. “You know, I don’t really  _ like _ drinking.” And as if to contradict himself entirely, he took a swig of the beer Matty had pushed onto him.

Matty raised an eyebrow.

“Doesn’t mean I won’t drink a beer in my life, but I don’t like getting like blackout drunk, you know?” He couldn’t help but blush a little. “So no, I don’t really want a shot. I mean, I should be here to look after you when you’re so pissed you can’t stand.”

“Ughh… that’s  _ boring _ .” Matty groaned, getting themself that second shot instead. “I want you to get drunk with me.”

“And why’s that?” George felt a sudden pang in his chest.

“You’d have to get drunk to find out.” Matty hit him with a smirk, pursing their lips slightly.

George glanced behind him, looking back across the room for any sign of his friends, for any sign of reason, for anyone to tell him not to.

But he found nothing at all.

“Would I?” He met Matty with a similar smirk. “Would you say it’d be worth it?”

“I don’t know…” Matty trailed off, biting their lip as they twirled a finger through their hair. “Guess you’d have to judge that one for yourself.”

George grinned, reaching for the shot. “I guess I will.”

And George let Matty get him drunk in the end.

Because fuck reason and fuck common sense. Matty  _ fucking _ Healy was wearing fucking  _ fishnets _ .

And he wished so desperately he could have the confidence to talk to them about that, and perhaps even the things it did to him. The things they did to him. The things George strived so very hard to keep out of his head. But he couldn’t, in fact, all he had to say for himself was a desperate smile and cheeks flushed bright red, and that just wasn’t terribly attractive at all.

-

“You’re drunk.” Matty laughed and grinned and giggled like it was the best thing they’d ever seen. Eyes grown wide and bright as if they wanted to absorb George directly into their soul. And partly, that had to be true.

“So are  _ you _ .” George laughed, pointing a figure accusingly at Matty sat beside him. He’d let Matty drag him off after the first drink, and they’d ended up upstairs, on an old abandoned sofa in a room they were just about entirely sure that they weren’t supposed to be in. But at that point, they just didn’t care.

“Yeah, but you’re  _ drunk _ .” Matty popped the word between their lips with entirely too much emphasis, almost ironically leaving George unable to focus on anything beside the movement of their lips.

“ _ So… _ ?” George trailed off, blushing the colour of the lipstick stain Matty had left on their glass. George wanted them to turn his whole world that stark dramatic shade of red.

“You’ve had like two drinks.” Matty got up from the sofa and began to wander across the room. It wasn’t particularly big, and didn’t seem to serve much more purpose than to store unwanted belongings in, with a tatty rug spread across the floor, and the old abandoned sofa pushed against the back wall.

“You’ve had like six.” George followed Matty’s movements with his eyes. “It’s been like  _ six minutes _ . You’re…  _ too _ drunk.” He shook his head, almost protective over Matty despite his current state, and the fact that Matty was blatantly twice as sober as him.

“You’re like six times as drunk as me, though.” Matty snorted, making their way over to an old bookcase that had been pushed against the furthest corner of the room. They ran their fingers over the spines of the book, wiping a layer of dust off as they did so.

George wasn’t paying attention. He was staring at Matty’s legs.

They were skinny, and so pale they were almost the colour of milk, and stretched upwards underneath fishnet tights as Matty reached towards a particular book seeming to have caught their attention.

“I can  _ feel _ that.” Matty snapped across the room: liquid confidence already beginning to set in. Finally, they reached up and retrieved a book that had been set down on the top shelf.

“What?” George flushed a bright shade of red.

“You  _ staring _ at me.” Matty turned around, meeting George with purpose and perhaps even bitterness. Whatever it was, it gave George chills - right down to his bones.

“I-... sorry…” George murmured, burying his face behind his can of beer, before setting it back down on the floor.

Matty turned their attention back down to the book they’d picked off the top shelf. An uncomfortable smile slipped over the face, sparking George’s curiosity - if he hadn’t been already shitting himself as it was, he would have gotten up and had a look at just what it was.

“Whose party is this?” Matty looked up, meeting George with an almost troubled look in their eyes, putting their whole world onto their lip and pulling it apart between their teeth.

George shrugged. “Why?” He leaned closer. “What  _ is _ that?”

“A yearbook.” Matty finally supplied, running their fingers back over the cover, as if they didn’t quite dare to open it.

George just stared at Matty for a moment: just moments away from catching on.

“It’s my school, my year-” Matty finally let out a sigh.

George’s eyes grew wide. “Give us a look.” His face lit up with glee.

Matty hit him with a distasteful glare, but tossed the yearbook into George’s lap regardlessly.

George watched him for a moment, almost just as hesitant to open the cover. “You don’t want me to look?”

“I looked a state at sixteen I’m telling you that.” Matty rolled their eyes, wishing desperately for another drink, but they didn’t want to leave George, not even for a minute.

“Yeah, but you look like… this…” He gestured across at Matty. “Now.”

Matty bit their lip. “Alright.”

And then as George took the yearbook into his hands, Matty followed it and threw themself down into George’s lap. Perhaps even catching the both of them by surprise.

“Hey…” George giggled, attempting to steady his heartbeat as Matty shuffled about on his lap, trying to get comfortable.

“You can tell me to fuck off if you want.” Matty stopped him for a moment, before leaning back into George’s chest. As they received no response, they took the initiative to slot their head under George’s.

If George was being entirely honest with himself, he didn’t think he’d have the breath to protest even if he’d wanted to.

“You’re alright.” He managed to assure them in the end.

“Alright?” Matty raised an eyebrow. “That’s it?”

“More than alright.” George agreed, feeling his cheeks heat up as Matty began to flick through the book.

“Really, whose party is this?” They let out a groan. “I don’t think I’ve spoken to anyone from school since I’ve left. Might be a bit awkward that we’re just invading all the rooms in their house. And then suddenly I’m here in a fucking skirt.”

“And going through their shit.” George added, cracking a smile. Matty, however seemed to be past the point of caring by now.

“I look so bad in this.” Matty turned to the year-group photo and pointed themself out.

George’s eyes grew wide. “Oh… wow-”

“Come on, George,  _ tell _ me. Tell me how ugly I was.” Matty rolled their eyes, pouting a little way as they snapped the book shut and threw it back across the room. It fell to the floor with an unpleasant bang.

“That’s not what I meant.” George’s tone grew stern, absent-mindedly curling his fingers around Matty’s side.

Matty’s breaths grew shaky under the pressure of George’s fingertips. He was hardly holding them very tightly at all, but he was holding them, and that was more than enough.

“If you say so…” Matty’s confidence dwindled at the seams: fading out into breathy sighs and shaking fingers.

“Mmm…” George gave a nod, even in his current state, noticing the sudden change in Matty’s demeanour. “You should go put that back.” He pointed, gesturing to the yearbook.

“What?” Matty rolled their eyes. “So you can stare at my thighs as I stretch to put it back up there again?” They didn’t stick around longer enough to gauge any kind of response.

George was left to watch wordlessly as Matty picked the book back up and shoved it messily on the bottom shelf.

“I don’t dress like this to be stared at, you know?” It was apparent that Matty had snapped the very moment they turned back around to face George.

George swallowed - this was the last thing he’d wanted Matty to think. “I’m sorry-”

“Okay, it’s a short skirt. Okay, maybe the tights were a bit much, but-... I can fucking wear what I want.” Matty bit their lip, meeting George with a distant kind of look in their eyes, like they were finally seeing the person they’d wanted to, but had came to realise that the person they’d first took George to be just wasn’t the person they wanted at all.

“I know. I’m sorry.” George groaned, stretching out against the sofa. “I don’t  _ mean _ to stare. I just… I’m  _ drunk _ and I can’t  _ help _ myself.”

“Yeah, way to sound like a fucking creep there, George.” Matty rolled their eyes, sitting themself back down beside George. He sat there reflecting the way his lap felt empty without Matty there in it.

“Fuck- I’m sorry.” George cursed, turning Matty with a desperate look in his eyes. “Nothing I’m saying is coming out right.”

Matty shrugged. “It’s just shit because I can’t work out if it’s because, god forbid, I’m wearing a skirt, and you’re staring at me like I’m something in a zoo or a fucking circus or something-” They caught their breath. “Or if you’re staring at me because you think I actually look good.”

“It’s the second one.” George offered him a smile.

But Matty didn’t look convinced. At all.

The room remained silent for a good minute, before Matty curled their fingers back around George’s wrist and pulled him up after them.

“Come on. I don’t think we’re drunk enough yet.”

George knew that couldn’t be true, but he wasn’t stupid enough to believe that he could possibly convince Matty otherwise. It was  _ their _ night, it was up to them what became of George, and how the night could possibly come to an end.

-

George ended up behind a locked bathroom door in the end. With his back pressed up against the wall and his head spinning, seeing the world with colours he hadn’t before even been able to imagine.

Part of him wasn’t entirely sure as to how he’d really got there. With the bathroom wall digging into his back, and his hands tightly gripped in dark curly hair, and perfect lips wrapped tightly around his cock.

Reality fazed back in and out, and he seemed to close his eyes and open them several minutes later. He was beyond drunk. Beyond messed up. But beyond pleased with himself. Because he didn’t care how much he’d had to drink with those lips around his cock, and the whole world seeming to curl in on the two of them.

He wondered just how many drinks Matty had given him. Just how drunk Matty had wanted him to get. He considered Matty’s intentions as he threw his gaze down to the dark curls beneath him, and bright lips stretched almost obscenely wide as his cock almost disappeared under them.

George made a guttural kind of moaning sound as he came, and then eyes flashed upwards to meet him.

But he didn’t see the face he wanted to at all.

It all came back to him then.

A girl, with dark hazel eyes, dark pink lipstick. A pretty face, but prettier curls. She looked the part. But realisation hit him like a slap to the face.

It hurt to sober up like that. So all of a sudden, especially from where he’d been, with his head spaced out somewhere else entirely, as his hands grasping for ones to hold, but this girl looked anything but keen to curl her fingers in around his wrist.

He felt a bit sick if he was being honest with himself, but George knew that it couldn’t help her self-confidence if he proceeded to promptly throw up the very moment she finished sucking him off. But he was drunk, after all. So very drunk. If Matty had thought he’d lost it before, he definitely had now.

The girl just looked at George for a minute, like she expected that he might kiss her again, or maybe get her off too, and as much as George liked to think that he respected women, there was no chance in hell that she was getting that from him in the state he was in.

She rolled her eyes at him as she let herself out, fading out amidst the sea of people outside the bathroom door. Part of George wondered if he should have felt guilty, especially with the fact that he was just nothing more than relieved to finally see her go.

He pulled his jeans back up and slid down beside the toilet, groaning for a second, before turning his head and throwing up what felt like the entire contents of not just his stomach, but his chest, into the toilet bowl.

George knew he looked a state. But he was drunk. And it was fucking Matty’s  _ fault _ , and everything fucking sucked. Because he loved them. Of course he did. But it just wasn’t helping him at all as he sat there, the sorriest he’d ever been, reaching to flush his own sick down the toilet as he began to cry.

He took a moment to vaguely remind himself that this was the  _ exact _ reason why he didn’t get drunk. But he knew it was hopeless. He’d destroy the whole world if Matty looked at him like that and asked him to.

It was just when George wondered if he might sit there forever that the bathroom door was pushed open and a rather startled looking Ross made his way in, judging George with all he had left. And really, as much as George hated it with everything he had, he was just so very thankful that it had been Ross and not just some random guy.

“Are you… alright?” Ross shut the door behind them, taking in George’s appearance with a bewildered kind of look in his eyes.

“No.” George exclaimed, letting out a groan. “I’m really not.”

“You’re drunk.” Ross sat down beside him. “Like…  _ really _ drunk.”

“Yeah.” George buried his face in his hands. “ _ Matty _ .” Was all he could offer up in the form of explanation.

“Matty.” Ross repeated, shaking his head. “I don’t imagine you got anywhere, did you?”

“No.” George groaned, throwing his head back against the wall. “Where’s Matty? I miss them. Hey, I’d one hundred percent want to die less if you found them for me.”

“They’ve gone.” Ross trailed off, biting his lip. “Home. They said.”

“Why?” George hit him with a distant kind of worried look.

“Because… well… they never really  _ said _ . But Adam saw you go off with some girl, so let’s be real, it was probably that.” Ross shook his head. “Well done, you fucking idiot.”

“Can you tell him I’m sorry?” George pleaded. “Call him or something,  _ please _ -”

“George, just-” Ross let out a sigh, growing almost tired of dealing with Matty and George’s ridiculous feelings for each other. “Talk to him tomorrow, alright? Maybe then you can talk about just why you went off with some girl.”

“Worst blowjob of my life…” George trailed off, burying his head in his hands.

“Jesus Christ, George, she-”

“It was  _ horrible _ .” He insisted, feeling so very sorry for himself.

“Well, George, it was a blowjob I’m struggling to imagine that it was exactly very unpleasant-”

“It wasn’t Matty, though. It wasn’t fucking  _ Matty _ . It wasn’t them.”

And Ross just didn’t know what he was going to do with him at all.

-

Matty was crying by the time they finally got home.

Their head hurt and they wanted to be sick.

It was dark. Too dark just to be evening anymore, and Matty wanted to collapse as soon as they could.

But in the brief minute between the slamming of the door behind them, and them wandering tentatively up the stairs, the landing light was switched on.

Matty felt blinded, rubbing the makeup from their eyes as they attempted to shelter their vision, blinking rapidly as they managed to make out a figure from across the hall.

“Matty…?” Louis’ voice was soft, and so cautious that Matty was worried he might break.

“Hmm…?” Matty groaned as they met Louis’ gaze. “What’s… it’s  _ late _ . You should be in  _ bed _ .”

“You should have got home hours ago.” Louis told him plainly, still quite struggling to take in Matty’s appearance.

“And what? You’re my fucking mum now?” Matty raised their voice slightly, still far too drunk, as they looked at Louis with an odd kind of almost disgust.

“Shut up or you’re going to wake both mum and dad up.” Louis snapped, his tone sterner than Matty could have ever expected it to be. “And then you’ll have to explain to  _ both of them _ just what you’re doing coming home at two a.m. in a skirt.”

Matty’s heart dropped right to the floor.

“Fuck.” They groaned, leaning back against the wall.

“Yeah.” Louis let out a sigh, not even daring to imagine just what had gotten Matty into this kind of state.

“I’m really drunk, Lou.” Matty groaned, burying their face in their hands.

“I’ve gathered.” Louis rolled his eyes, glancing between Matty and their bedroom door. “Do you want me to get you something or are you alright to just go to sleep by yourself?”

“Some painkillers.  _ Please _ .” Matty sighed; Louis met Matty with a smile that they knew they didn’t deserve, before slipping off downstairs.

They pushed open their bedroom door and stumbled inside, not quite daring to face themself in the mirror for even just a moment. Instead, Matty just set their phone on to charge and did their best to rub their makeup off without facing their reflection, before throwing their clothes off onto floor until they were just left in the shirt - oversized, and falling down over their thighs.

Matty let out a groan, forcing themself into bed, and just laid there, trying to physically will away their headache until Louis got back.

A minute later, he set a glass of water and a couple of paracetamol down onto the nightstand. Louis couldn’t help but linger a while longer, watching as Matty downed the pills and seemed to make a point of looking even more like they just wanted to fade away and die.

“We should probably talk about it in the morning.” Louis commented, watching Matty’s eyes shoot open.

“Talk about what?” Matty met him with wide eyes, and cheeks burning red.

“The skirt.” Louis let out a sigh.

“It’s  _ just a fucking skirt _ .” Matty groaned, burying their head into the pillow.

“It’s not, though. Is it?” Louis gave way to a sigh, waiting for a response, but past the minute mark, he deemed it a lost cause and instead made his way to the door.

“Night, Lou.” Matty stopped him, slurring words out against the pillow: eyes pulled firmly shut.

“Night, Matty.” He added, before closing the door behind him and leaving Matty to their thoughts, and the blurry convoluted recollection of the night to play out in their mind until the very end of time.

-

“It’s not just a skirt.”

Matty walked into Louis’ room come ten the next morning.

Louis offered them a knowing look and gestured for them to sit down.

“Everything’s a bit of a mess, really.” Matty gave way to a sigh as they sat themselves down beside Louis on the end of his bed. “I mean, when’s it not, but-...” They fell away into a sigh.

“But you need to talk about it?” Louis did his best to fill in the gaps, meeting Matty with a careful, almost hesitant expression.

“Probably, yeah…” Matty fell back against the bed, letting their hair fall out in a mess around them as the morning set in.

“My gender’s a bit fucked.” Matty reckoned it was as good a place to start as any.

Louis raised his eyebrows a little, but gave nothing more in the way of a response, leaving the room to fall back into silence.

“Sorry…” Matty gave way to a sigh. “I should stop swearing around you so much. It’s a bad influence. I don’t want to be that kind of…” Matty stopped themself - the word ‘brother’ dissipating away into the air before they could quite reach for it.

“Don’t worry about it.” Louis assured Matty, meeting them with a smile. “Now what’s this about your gender…?” The words seemed to bear a physical weight upon his lips.

“It’s kind of complicated and all over the place, but then again, I guess I am too. I guess it fits in that way at least.” Matty bit their lip: wondering just how they ought to phrase it. “So like… gender… gender’s weird, and it’s been… very much on my mind for the past few months, and I’ve been dealing with it, and really struggling to do so. And like… I’m not like… a boy, you know? Like…”

Matty couldn’t help but glance across, trying to gauge Louis’ reaction.

“So… you’re a  _ girl _ …?” Louis’ eyes grew wide, taking in Matty with an almost overwhelmed look upon his face. And really, admittedly, it was quite a lot to take in, but it didn’t help their confidence at all.

“No.” Matty shook their head, letting out a sigh. “I thought I was. For like… for a while. But… I’m like… I’m like in the middle. Like, genderqueer, if you want to put a name on it. And that’s… not the most widely accepted thing, I know, and I, it kind of makes me uncomfortable, because there is this part of me that feels like it’s not something I can actually identify with, but it is, and nothing else quite fits.”

“Okay…” Louis trailed off, sitting and thinking for a moment. “I did wonder if there was something up, you know?”

“Course you did.” Matty snorted, because Louis was just growing unbelievable at this point.

“How do… like… are you my  _ brother _ or… like… how do I refer to you? How do you want me to? I’m sorry.” Louis blushed a little, watching Matty stare up at the ceiling a little while longer.

“You can… you can call me your brother if you want. But, I’m not, not really. I’m just your sibling, I guess. I don’t know, but you can call me your brother. If it makes things easier.” Matty bit their lip.

“But it’s not about what makes things easy for me.” Louis thought for a moment. “It’s about what makes you feel comfortable, isn’t it?”

Matty shrugged. “You can call me your brother if you want. But, like… call me ‘they’ not ‘he’. Is that alright?” Louis gave a nod. “It’s alright if you fuck up, you know? Like… it’s all a bit messy, and don’t worry about it. Just don’t like… don’t mention anything around mum and dad.”

“You’re not going to tell them?” Louis raised his eyebrows.

Matty let out a groan. “I don’t know. Not yet. Maybe in the future. I’m really, I’m really not entirely comfortable with it all yet.”

“But you told me.”

“You deserved to know, really.” Matty pulled his lips out into a thin smile. “You put up with me last night, and always, and I’m terrible, I’m the worst sibling, and I think you deserve to at least know  _ why _ . What’s going on that’s causing all of this.”

“Can I ask where you were last night then?” Louis bit his lip. “Not to sound too like mum, I’m just… curious.”

“Party.” Matty supplied, feeling physically lighter now that the matter of gender had been taken off their chest. As much as they knew it was a good thing, it couldn’t help but make them feel just that little bit sick.

“I wasn’t planning on going, it was this thing with George’s mates, and they’re nice, they’re actually lovely, but I felt a bit like they just invited me because they felt awkward. But I’ve kind of fucked up things with me and Gemma again, so I mean, I didn’t have anything better to do with my Friday night, so I went along in the end.”

“Who’s George?” Louis looked up: all bright eyes, and perhaps still too much innocence for Matty to really be telling him the entire truth.

“Fuck, have I not-” Matty groaned, burying their head in their hands. “ _ George _ .”

“No, you’ve not told me about him.” Louis watched them for a moment - it didn’t take him any longer to gather that George was definitely someone important.

“He’s… I first met him when he came into the coffeeshop, and then he was at Gemma’s party, and we talked about things and smoked a bit, and then… things just… I’m like sort of in love with him, or something.”

“ _ Oh _ .” Louis’ eyes grew wide. “What about… Charlie?”

“I broke up with Charlie.” Matty supplied: not quite daring to tell him the rest.

“Oh…” Louis repeated.

“Yeah.” Matty fell into a sigh. “But George is beautiful. Like… inside and out. He’s just  _ beautiful _ . And already it feels so much more than what I had with Charlie.”

“Does he know you like him?” Louis really had never expected to wake up that morning and attempt to give Matty awkward relationship advice, but there they were.

“I don’t  _ know _ . I haven’t told him, but I don’t think I’ve really tried to hide it. It’s just…” Matty trailed off. “I don’t know if I want to… like… be with him. I’m scared to fuck it up… and I just don’t know.”

“But if you love him-”

“He’s straight, and he’s only started looking at me differently since I started being comfortable with my gender and presenting more feminine around him. And I’m not going to let him pretend I’m a girl, or anything, because I’m  _ not _ . And last night, at this fucking party, he went off with some girl. So he obviously isn’t that concerned about me. And it’s like, he might be the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen, but I don’t want to let people use me anymore.”

“Why would he use you?” Louis struggled to quite take in the situation.

“Because I  _ let _ people use me. Sort of subconsciously. And I know I do, and I can hardly stop myself. And… I’ve got… this… trust in George… it’s kind of terrifying really. If he told me he’d love me if I cut off my own arms, I think I might.”

Matty drew a shaky breath. “I’m a bit fucked, honestly.”

“Like… with  _ Charlie _ … things… got kind of  _ bad _ . Like when everything finally ended, and I finally knew I had to stop it, I kind of came to realise that I just couldn’t keep letting people treat me like that anymore. That I couldn’t just give my whole world to the first boy who called me pretty.” Matty broke out in a shaky kind of nervous laughter. “Like… I think George is different, but…”

“But?” Louis watched Matty: eyes wide.

“I think that about every boy I’ve ever laid eyes upon.” They let out a sigh.

“So you don’t want to be with him?” Louis met them with a look of confusion.

“I don’t know.” Matty gave way to a sigh. “I’m just not going to give him everything just because he asked nicely.”

“You want to make sure he’s different?” Louis suggested. “See that he’s proved that before you consider it?”

“Yeah.” Matty smiled. “I think so.”

“And part of me thinks that’s utterly stupid, that if George likes me back then I’ve got to just go for that, because I thought it might never happen, but...”

Matty sank their teeth into their bottom lip: drawing the whole world in and out through a single breath.

“But honestly, I think it’s the only sensible idea I’ve ever had.”

-


	8. a sentimental gay mess, except its not a mess, i feel like theres this whole other layer of cohesion, i think this is so much more than a mess, this is a good chapter, in my view, but its sentimental, and its gay

_ ‘So I guess I fucked up this time around. _

_ Makes a change, that. Don’t you think? Not that everything else is your fault - that’s really not what I meant. Just that, you always blame yourself. That you always come and tell me that everything’s fucked and that it’s all your fault. I guess maybe it’s good that it isn’t this time around. Makes a change, doesn’t it? _

_ Not that- of course, it’s not that I think what happened was a good thing. I just… honestly, Matty, I don’t know how to properly word this. I don’t think I’ve written a letter in a long time. And maybe this was a weird way to go about things, but I don’t know, it felt right. _

_ It was something I used to do, you know? Like a year and a half ago, I had this girlfriend, and we always used to write notes to each other - just little things, but somehow it meant so much more than just sending a text or something. I guess it was the physicality of it, you know? And knowing that someone had gone to the effort to write it out and leave that note for you, that they actually cared that much rather than to just spend ten seconds typing out a text message. It was nice, you know? But then it wasn’t. _

_ Of course, we broke up, things went weird in the end. I guess there got to be a point where we faced a dilemma that neatly handwritten apologies couldn’t solve. Like, no amount of kisses on the end of letter could fix your heart. Things got bad in the end. _

_ I hope this isn’t bad. I hope this is enough. I hope I didn’t fuck up that much. I really do hope you’ll forgive me. I know, I know I fucked up, and I know you’re upset, but it happened, and I’m sorry. I can’t erase the past - we both know that, so really all I can do is hope you’ll believe just how sorry I am. How much I mean this apology, and I hope the letter helps with that. I hope it was something you were happy to receive - to hear from me again, to hear my explanation. _

_ I hope you didn’t look at your name scrawled across the envelope in my handwriting and scowl. But if you did. If you did, I’m not going to ramble on and make you feel guilty for that. Because if you did, you did so with reason, and that’s okay. And if you did, then I have no right to demand that you feel another way. _

_ But I can hope. And I’ll hope you’ll at least read this letter, and maybe even write me back, and even if it’s like I just asked for the whole world, I’d like to imagine that you’d understand. _

_ So, that night. I was drunk. You know that. You got me drunk. But it’s not your fault. Don’t think it’s your fault. I don’t think it’s your fault. I know that you pushed me to, but it wasn’t like you poured the vodka down my throat or anything - I took those drinks, and being drunk doesn’t take away the fact that you were responsible for everything you did. _

_ But, I was drunk. Like, really drunk. Because I’m a fucking lightweight, and we both know it. And it’s not that you don’t know what you’re doing when you’re drunk, you just sort of stop thinking about the consequences, and you do things you wouldn’t, because when you’re sober you remember to think that you’d hurt someone, so you stop. And I don’t know how to handle myself when I’m drunk - we’ve both figured that out. _

_ And I truly am sorry. For making you feel uncomfortable, because I know I did. For staring. I really didn’t mean any harm by it, I really did just think you looked nice, but, like, I couldn’t quite work out how to properly express that. I’m sorry. Honestly. I’m sorry for making you feel like I’m taking you for granted or taking advantage of you, because really, that’s the last thing I want to do. _

_ But if you think I am. Then I have no right to tell you I’m not. And that’s okay. I can hope that you’d change your mind, but if you can’t, and if you don’t want to, then that’s okay. _

_ Maybe it’s not exactly okay, but I can’t change your mind for you, and I have to accept that, or I’m going to drive myself mad. But honestly, from the depths of my heart, I’m sorry, you mean the world to me - you’re more than your legs in fishnet tights, you’re more than bright red lipstick stains.  _

_ You deserve more than me. You deserve someone who didn’t make the mistake in the first place. And if I could, I would turn back time and put it right - I wouldn’t look at you like I did, I wouldn’t get drunk, and I wouldn’t walk off with that girl, I wouldn’t leave you alone like that.  _

_ And I’m not just saying that. I mean it. I don’t know how I can prove that to you, but I’m trying my best. _

_ And this girl. I don’t know if I should talk about, in detail, I mean, because I don’t know - maybe you don’t want to hear about that at all, and really that’s understandable. But it felt wrong. Like innately wrong, inside of me, I think you know what I mean, I think you’ve felt that sort of thing before, when you kiss someone and you feel absolutely nothing at all. But you let them kiss you still. I’m not sure why I did that. _

_ But I felt like shit in the end. It was shit in the end. She sucked me off. In case you wanted to know. But it felt shit, because I didn’t feel anything, and I didn’t like her - not even at all. _

_ I don’t know why I went off with her in the first place. I think I was too out of it to really notice what was happening. But that’s not an excuse and we both know that. I think maybe I wanted the attention. But it just wasn’t what I needed. _

_ I think what I need is love. I think I need something meaningful again. Everything feels all too grey, like faded out into the background. And I hate that. _

_ But there are some things that stop that, like bursts of colour in my life. And I can’t help desperately clinging to them, because I’m terrified of losing those few good things that really make me feel alive. _

_ You’re one of those bursts of colour for me. Ever since I first saw you, I think. _

_ And if I’m being honest with myself, I can’t bare to lose you. Especially not over this. But don’t let me guilt trip you or anything like that, I’m just trying to be honest. I think honesty is good for me. If you don’t want me back in your life, then honestly, trust me - that’s more than okay. _

_ You deserve better than that. _

_ George _

_ XX’ _

-

Matty grasped George’s letter between trembling fingertips that Thursday morning. The world ran in circles around their head, and the mess of conversation that surrounded them seemed to cut into their head with a tangible kind of malice.

Really, Matty needed to sit down. And they needed to think. 

But from the other side of the kitchen, their family met them with questioning glances. Or at least they had - they were dismissed soon enough - it was a Thursday morning, and a busy kind of empty breakfast, with their dad disappearing off to go to work, and Louis trying to do his maths homework at the very last minute as he ate his toast.

They glanced back down at the letter. And read it through a second time around.

Matty couldn’t help themself. Somehow the world outside of George’s words seemed to hold no weight at all. So much so that it even began to make them a little dizzy.

Dizzy with bright pink cheeks, a letter grasped firmly between fingertips - only shaking a little less now. Matty smiled.

“Do you want any of this toast?” His mum asked across the room, seeming to break the moment, as if on purpose.

Matty shook their head, folding George’s letter up again and pushing it down into their pocket.

“You’ve not eaten anything.” She commented, watching Matty with that all too familiar maternal concern.

“I’ve got to leave in like five minutes.” Matty shrugged it off, running a hand back through their hair.

Denise shoot them a look like she didn’t quite believe them. Matty seemed awfully offended for someone who was, in fact, lying.

“I have.” They bit their lip. “My manager wants me in early today.” They lied, like it was the easiest thing in the world.

-

Matty arrived at the coffeeshop half an hour early and sat themself down at one of the booths, drawing up a pen and paper out of somewhere or other, and setting their mind to think. To write. To the truth.

But the truth didn’t come easily.

Words didn’t appear out of early morning shadows, and the slight coffee stains left on the table. Matty’s head didn’t sort itself out on its own. Loneliness didn’t come without prior company. It was common sense really.

But still, even with common sense in mind, Matty couldn’t solve their problems.

They sat and thought. And watched as pretty people passed them by.

They sat and considered the difference between prettiness and beauty. They sat and wondered just what the two really did mean. They sat and wondered if this was enough. If this might get them somewhere. Somewhere out of early morning shadows and cramped headspaces. 

Matty watched the winter morning sky - the first tentative rays of sun, and the way they seemed to case the distant glimpse of the moon right out of the sky. That morning felt an awful lot like that. That day carried much the same tone.

Matty at sat at home in bed and thought of the person they should have been. The person that wouldn’t have let it all go wrong. The person that was happy. They sat and thought of Gemma. Of the distance growing between them. Of fixing that gap, of fixing themself.

In the end, the verdict was that words just couldn’t do it, and neither could George. So they didn’t write. Not that day, nor the next. 

Matty let George’s words settle in around them like dust, like ideas that could echo around their head for days. And they would, in the end. When Matty grew tired of this all - of empty weekends, and stupid apologies, and beautiful boys that meant all too much.

In the end, it was eleven p.m. on Saturday when Matty finally sat down to write.

But by eleven p.m. on Saturday, Matty finally had something to say.

-

_ ‘Which colour am I, then? _

_ If everything feels grey, except for these bursts of colour. Which one am I? _

_ Don’t say all of them, that’s cheating - that’s not a real answer, that’s a bullshit answer, and that just proves it’s something you’ve made up to get me to listen. And I don’t think that it is. Not really. But I want you to prove that. _

_ So tell me, which colour am I? _

_ I fucked up too. I mean, yeah, you were kind of a dick, and that’s… that’s kind of fucked with my head, because I always thought. I always thought you were like this perfect guy, who was so different from everybody else, like who could never be a dick - someone who could never hurt me. _

_ But you’re not. You’re human. _

_ Of course you are. _

_ But that’s okay. _

_ That’s more than okay. I think I needed that reminder - you know, that no one’s perfect, even if they seem like it. Like, I sort of decided I needed to look for the perfect guy, now that I don’t want to sleep with anyone who so much as smiles at me, but those are two very different ends of spectrum. And like, there are no perfect guys. And the ones that let you believe that they are - well they’re the worst ones of all. _

_ So I reckon I just… I need to stop thinking so much. Maybe just do what makes me happy. Try to figure out what that even is. You know? Just what feels right - instinct and all of that. _

_ Forgiving you feels right. I miss you. Too much. _

_ I’m sorry for not responding sooner. I’ve had a lot in my head. I think if I made myself reply the moment I first read this I would have instantly told you to fuck off, and don’t tell me that’s okay - don’t let yourself think that. Because you matter a lot to me. And I’d like to think I matter a lot to you too. _

_ I think there are a lot of things in my life that needed to be fixed, but you’re not one of them. I think we’re fine. I guess maybe it sounds a bit funny, but I think with us, everything’s just okay. Really, now it is. At least for me. I hope it’s the same for you. _

_ But I’ve got a lot in my head. I can’t stop thinking about bad decisions - about Charlie, about Ryan, about Gemma. I’ve still not spoken to Gemma. I think one week was enough, and now with two, everything’s just a bit fucked. I need to figure out how to say sorry. But I’m scared. Because I’m me, and I guess I always will be. _

_ I just wish I could take all this fear away. I wish that one day things would actually work out my way. _

_ I’m sorry for making you drink. I’m sorry for making assumptions. You’re a better guy than you think you are. And I’m the worst drunk of all. We both know that. _

_ I think I’m a bit caught up in my own head. It’s a lot to ask, but I’d love if you could come help me out of it. I feel like you could. _

_ Meet me after work on Monday, at the coffeeshop. I want to see your face again. I miss that smile. I miss you. _

_ If you were a colour, you’d be gold. _

_ Matty _

_ XX’ _

-

George read it for a final time as the sun began to set, and the shadows cast themselves into long foreboding figures across the street. His heart was pounding in his chest, and he just couldn’t quite figure out as to whether it was down to excitement or fear.

It was quarter to five when he first arrived. It was five past five when he finally made his way inside. But it was a welcome twenty minutes, spent a little way down the street, cigarette in hand, watching the sky turn a warm brassy shade of pink. 

It was a colour that felt like home. Like the colour of rosy cheeks in the cold evening air, the colour of lips against his own, the colour of forever cluttered living room walls, the colour of something out beyond him: something beyond that street and that afternoon. Something he longed for. Something he liked to tell himself he needed.

But those thoughts left him soon enough; he was hit with a gust of warmth the very moment he stepped inside the coffeeshop - enough to take the entire word out of him. It brought forth an odd kind of nostalgia: tearing him back months - to when Matty was just another face in the crowd, just a pretty barista, and this was just an idle place to waste his life away.

He wondered if, really, anything  _ had _ changed, if they were really much more than strangers now, but then he met Matty’s face across the room: sat down at the booth at the other side of the coffeeshop. It was George’s booth, but more than that, it was  _ theirs  _ too.

“Thought you might not be coming in the end.” Matty gave way to a breathy giggle as George approached, sitting himself down opposite them. They were nervous - the kind of nervous that had George plagued with guilt; the kind of nervous he thought that Matty ought not to be, but, of course George had no right to decide that.

“Don’t be stupid.” George shook his head, pressing his head into his hand, as he rested his elbow down onto the table.

Matty flashed him a smile. “You are late.” They crossed their arms across their chest.

George shrugged. “Five minutes.” He buried his smile into the palm of his hand.

“Still...” Matty leaned back against the sofa, resorting to just watching George for a second: contemplating all that remained unspoken.

“We’re okay…” Matty dragged their words out: slow and tentative. Still lost up in that unnatural kind of anxiety that had George’s stomach in knots. “Aren’t we?”

“Course.” George gave them a nod, pulling his hand away from his face, and doing all he could to look at Matty properly.

“I missed you.” Matty bit their lip, holding in their whole world as they looked across at George. Because suddenly, that Monday evening, it was like everything all over again. Like the first time, like the same innocent smiles.

“I missed you too.” George told him. Not just because he felt like he ought to. But because he meant it. 

And then, as the silence dragged on, and gazes remained locked away and so very contemplative, George finally brought his head to their letters, to everything written down - everything they couldn’t quite bring themselves to say out loud.

“You’re pink, by the way.” George began, blushing slightly.

“What?” Matty met him with a look of confusion, moving his hands up to his cheeks.

“Not… like that…” George trailed off. “In your letter… when you asked me, what colour you were.” He continued to elaborate: voice slower than usual. “You’re pink. A soft, warm pink. Like the sunset.” He pulled his gaze towards the window.

Matty blushed like an idiot. “Fuck off.” They buried their head into their hands, fingers pulling away from their eyes momentarily, just to catch sight of the sky.

“What?” George grinned, leaning back in his seat.

“Shut up.” Matty grinned, finally pulling their hands away from their face. “That’s  _ such _ a lie.”

“It’s not.” George uttered, voice growing softer; he meant it.

Matty glanced back up at the sky and shook their head. “In  _ what _ way am I like that?”

George bit back a ‘because you’re beautiful’ and shrugged. “I’d have to get really sappy to explain. And neither of really want that, do we?”

Matty snorted. “You’re an idiot.”

George couldn’t help but agree, sitting for a moment, before meeting Matty with an inquisitive look to his eyes. “Why am I gold, though?”

“I’d have to get even  _ sappier _ .” Matty assured him, leaning back in their seat. “Trust me.”

George struggled to bite back a smile.

“Gold like what though? I gave you the sunset. What am I? Gold like a rusty pound coin, the wrapper of a Lidl’s own brand chocolate easter bunny, a tub of kids’ craft glitter-”

“Gold like the sun.” Matty cut in, shutting him up. “You idiot. I’m not looking at someone and thinking, oh yeah, they proper remind me of a chocolate easter bunny-”

“The sun isn’t gold.” George folded his arms across his chest. “It’s fucking yellow.”

“Yeah, but telling someone they remind you of a colossal burning sphere of gas doesn’t sound anywhere near as nice, does it?” Matty rolled their eyes, because George was an idiot - he really was.

“Then why did you say I was?” George laughed, almost desperate to prove a point.

Matty let out a groan. “Okay, maybe not the sun  _ itself _ , alright? But like…” They trailed off, thinking for a moment. “But like summer. The summer sun, and everything is warm and golden, and you feel happy, and you feel safe, and you feel alive.”

Matty dragged their gaze down to the floor. “Told you I’d get sappy, didn’t I?”

George’s cheeks were the brightest red of all. “You did.”

Matty bit at their fingernails, just watching George for a moment. Because that had felt an awful lot like flirting. And maybe things were a bit different now. But it had felt right. It had felt okay.

“I need to fix things with Gemma.” Matty announced out of the silence, one leg brought up to their chest.

George nodded, pulling his head back to reality. “She misses you, you know?”

Matty shrugged: not entirely convinced that was true. “She’s probably glad she’s not had to deal with me moping and crying every time something goes wrong in my life for two weeks.”

“Shut up.” George shook his head. “You’re lovely, and trust me, you’re very easy to miss.”

Matty groaned, burying their head in their hands. “Shut up,  _ please _ .” They pulled away, meeting George with a nervous smile, and all kinds of butterflies trapped in their stomach. “But is it just weird, to suddenly pop round her place, like sorry about like, being a dickhead, by the way I’ve changed my mind about my gender again, but I finally told George about it, so like… please accept me back into your life.”

“Call her.” George suggested. “Call her first. Just be honest. She kind of stepped out of line as well, I mean, I think… I think you both should be alright with each other - I mean, you’re best friends, and you have been for years, is two weeks of being bitter going to change that?”

Matty looked up at George like he was the answer to everything and anything at all. “Thanks.” He smiled. “Not to sound weird, but… like… when you say things, they just make sense, you know? Like… I don’t know why, but just the fact that it’s you like…  _ helps _ .”

“It’s you getting stuck up in your own head, isn’t it?” George filled in the gaps, not wanting to put the credit entirely onto himself. “I’m glad to help, honestly. Even if I don’t really feel like I am.”

“You are.” Matty assured him, biting their lip. “I call her tomorrow. I’ll sort it tomorrow. Make sure I do, like actually come and yell at me if I don’t, I  _ mean _ it.”

George laughed, just watching Matty for a moment, and just letting himself be so utterly enthralled by them. “Alright. Promise.”

And Matty sat for a moment, and looked at George and bit back everything inside. Just until they couldn’t anymore. Until everything came out with little regard for sense or rationality. “That girl. You went off with. At the party.”

“Yeah…?” George trailed off: dragging a breath straight from his lungs as if it was all so forced.

“She was… she wasn’t… like… blonde… with like…” George shook his head, leaving Matty to trail off, biting their lip.

“She wasn’t. Dark hair.” He decided against detailing just how much she had looked like them. “Why?”

“I remembered whose party it was in the end.” Matty gave way to a sigh. “You know, cause of the yearbook, and that… that fucked with my head a bit. Like… I didn’t want to revisit some… old memories… and… I didn’t want… shit like…  someone from school seeing me like that… as… I don’t know… I make out like I don’t care, but I do… and then… the house sort of seemed too familiar - like something I’d tried to forget, but I was too drunk to place it, and then… I figured it out.”

“Who’s was it?” George watched the oddly startled look in Matty’s eyes for a good moment before speaking.

“Uhh… This girl... blonde hair, blue eyes, kind of so conventionally pretty that it’s just  _ boring _ .” Matty trailed off, twirling a strand of hair around their finger. “Her name’s Sarah. My first like proper girlfriend and that… thought it might be a bit awkward, if suddenly I’m there looking prettier than her, and like, especially if she sucked your dick, because-”

“Looking prettier than her.” George scoffed, but really he didn’t doubt that Matty was right.

“She was kind of bad at sucking dick. I mean, at sixteen, at least, maybe she’s improved now, but…” Matty trailed off. “It’s been bothering me. Even if you just kissed her. She caused… a lot of shit… that… I don’t want to revisit, I guess.”

“That’s fair.” George nodded, watching Matty for a moment. “And I mean, the girl… she like walked out instantly, because I was like seconds away from puking everywhere. It was hardly romantic.”

Matty snorted - that made them feel significantly better with themself. “You know? What’s funny, though. Fucking Sarah, my first and only proper girlfriend…” Matty rolled their eyes. “You know why she broke up with me? Because she thought I was secretly gay.”

George grinned. “ _ Oh _ .”

“And I mean, she wasn’t wrong- just…” Matty shook their head. “That fucked with my head at sixteen. It fucked with… quite a lot… at sixteen… And I didn’t want her to see me again and get the satisfaction of knowing that she was right.”

George snorted, rolling his eyes. “You really are a petty fuck, aren’t you?”

“The pettiest, of course.” Matty grinned back, burying old memories with the sunset: leaving them to rot away with the sun, so far out of view. 

And as the last rays of sunlight began to fade away, the sky burned with shades of pink and gold intertwined with one another, as if they might just stretch out like that forever.

-

“It’s a peace offering.”

Matty thrusted the bottle of Tesco everyday value vodka into her hands the very moment she opened her front door.

Gemma paused for a moment: staring, wide eyed, between Matty and the bottle that had almost been forced into her grip. She blinked. And looked between the two again - not entirely convinced that either of them were actually there.

“You can take it and close the door on me, or you can take it and accept it as my  _ sincere _ apology for being a dickhead and wanting to fix things between us, or you could like just smash the bottle over my head or something.” Matty offered her a tentative kind of grin. “I’ve really covered all bases here.”

Gemma didn’t say anything. She just looked back down at the bottle of vodka, and then back up at Matty.

“It was George’s idea, really. The peace offering. He didn’t quite think that, you know, vodka was the best idea, but like… you like vodka. I like vodka. So it represents our friendship. And you make stupid mistakes when you’re pissed on vodka, so it represents the argument. It’s bitter and fucking foul like me, but it’s surprisingly comforting and I need it in my life like you.” Matty eased it all over with an over confident smile. 

Gemma had never quite imagine she’d ever open her front door and find Matty waxing poetic about their almost symbiotic love for her and vodka.

“George wanted me to get you chocolate or something. He’s so sweet, isn’t he?” Matty gave way to a grin. “Who does he think I am, though? Fucking, easter bunny or something, like going around giving people free chocolate, like, here’s some cheap shitty vodka, I care about you, but I work minimum wage, and I’m not a fucking charity.”

Gemma snorted. She couldn’t help herself. “You fucking idiot. Fucking hell, I’d thought I fucked up. I’ve missed you, you know?”

She reached forward and pulled Matty into a hug. Matty wondered if they had ever felt quite so warm over the past few weeks. 

Gemma felt safe. Gemma’s arms around them in the hallway brought them back to better times, to when they had been happy, when things had been better - easy, even. 

And as Gemma lead them into the kitchen, setting the vodka down onto the countertop, Matty felt fifteen again - getting properly drunk for the first time, and being so giddy and overexcited about it all, with drink they’d snagged off their parents, and consequences they’d come to face in time. But in that moment, it didn’t matter. Nothing did. Matty thought, just for a moment, that they might give everything just to live in that world again.

“I’m sorry too.” Gemma finally addressed them properly, turning to face Matty for a moment after she’d reached for two shot glasses, setting them down beside the vodka.

Matty eyed the glasses cautiously. “You want to get pissed?”

“Matty, you bought me vodka - what else are we going to do? If you want us to get all soppy sentimental, maybe you should have listened to George and brought me chocolate instead.”

Matty pulled a smile over their lips, running a hand back through their hair, and just watching Gemma for a moment, because really a lot had happened in their time apart from each other.

It felt stupid, really. How quickly everything slotted back together, and how Gemma had just accepted them with, quite literally, open arms. Matty wondered, in fact, if maybe they did just need that distance - that space from each other, to grow a bit more independent and deal with their own shit. But still, there was a lot unspoken, and a lot that vodka could help them get off their mind.

“We’re good now, though, aren’t we?” Matty followed Gemma into her room, speaking almost nervously, as if a part of them was so very terrified of the response. “Like… forget all that… mess… and everything. We’re still best friends?”

“Don’t be stupid, Matty.” Gemma rolled her eyes, leading the way into her room. “Course we are. I mean, come on, you fucked Ryan and we’re still fine, we had a bit of a mess of an argument, but we’re still fine.”

“I think we just needed some space.” Matty concluded, sitting themself down on the rug, shot glass between their legs. “I think… as much as I have missed you… past two weeks have been good for me… I mean… mostly. There’s been a bit of a mess as well… I mean… fuck…”

“Yeah.” Gemma couldn’t help but agree, sitting down opposite them. “I met this guy, you see. And he’s nice. Like properly nice, not just,  _ nice to me _ . Like there’s a difference, isn’t there?” Matty nodded: knowing all too well. “And things are going well, you know? He’s nice. His name’s Oliver.”

Matty met her with a smile. “Can I meet him? Or are you worried I’m going to fuck him as well?”

“No.” Gemma leaned back against the wall: all too confident. “You’re  _ far _ too smitten with George to do that.”

Matty’s eyes widened: reckoning that now, it had to be anything but the case.

“You’ve been here? What? Five minutes? Ten? At most. And half the time, you’ve been on about him.” Gemma grinned. “It’s sweet though, really. Did you spend a lot of time with him? How are you two doing?”

Matty stopped for a moment. “It’s going well. It’s going probably the best it ever could, you know? Because we’re not  _ together _ , and that’s fine, because it’s not about like…  _ hopping on his dick _ , or something. Because it’s more than that. And really, I think I’ve just figured a lot out about myself recently… I mean…”

Gemma eyed them carefully. “What’s happened?” She leaned forward, almost in disbelief. “Seriously, what’s  _ happened _ ? There’s something different.”

“Yeah.” Matty gave way to a laugh: nervous at best. “There’s quite a lot different. I mean, for a start… I’m… I figured out my gender… again.” They met Gemma with a hopeful smile. “Sorry. I know it’s a mess, but I think. I think I settled on being a girl more to please other people, but this, this is to please myself. And I think that’s important.”

Matty paused for a moment, watching the concern grow in Gemma’s eyes, and noting how the first time now, she wasn’t the first person to know. “So, I’m genderqueer.” They met her eyes. “So… like… a ‘they’ not a ‘she’. But like… I’m still, as you can see, comfortable with femininity.” Matty gave way to a laugh, looking down at the skirt they had on. “Just… I didn’t quite know how to express it.”

“I’m proud of you.” Gemma meant their eyes with all the honesty in their world. “Immensely. Just want you to be happy, alright? And if this really does fit, then I’m glad.”

“Just feel like I’m being a bit annoying about it like… I might as well have been every gender by now.” Matty groaned, pouring themself a shot. “But that’s okay, because it’s… it’s not about what makes other people comfortable, it’s about what makes  _ me _ comfortable.”

“Yeah.” Gemma offered them a nod. “It is.”

Matty downed the shot. “Louis told me that. He’s clever he is, especially for thirteen. More than I give him credit for.”

“Wait…” Gemma’s eyes grew wide. “Did you come out to him?”

Matty nodded, unable to bite back a smile. “About my gender and my sexuality. Not at the same time. That would have been a bit much, but he practically guessed my sexuality anyway, I mean… it was weird, he was just so  _ nice _ about everything, like even though, he kind of didn’t really fully grasp what my gender meant, he’s still trying. He’s lovely, honestly.”

“I’m  _ so _ proud of you.” Gemma just looked at Matty, unable to quite take in all that had changed in the past two weeks.

“And I told George as well.” Matty added, pulling their gaze away. “And I nearly shat myself. But it was okay, because he’s George, and he’s the loveliest person in the world so of course it was. I just… I guess it got to the point where I had to. And I guess that was what changed. Being honest with George, you know? About things.”

“So I’m like the last to know?” Gemma narrowed her eyes, almost offended. “Well, third, really, but-”

“No, George’s friends know too.” Matty supplied, just to be unhelpful. “They’re all really nice, and I do feel like sometimes some of them look at me like I’m a bit of a charity case, but they’re lovely, and George is lovely, and I’m… I’m like… happy… now.”

“That’s what’s important.” Gemma nodded, downing her shot.

“But… I feel like people really do treat you differently, like, after I came out, like… I don’t know. George looks at me differently now, not  _ differently _ , but like he’s let himself. Now he knows I’m not a boy, like he’s letting himself be attractive to me. And as nice as it is, I don’t want to be objectified, you know? Like I’m not wearing a short skirt for someone to spend a whole evening staring at my thighs, because I used to think that was  _ nice _ , that I liked that, but it’s not… it’s not good at all, and I shouldn’t let people treat me like that.”

“George… is?” Gemma trailed off, eyes growing wide. “Wait is George being a dick to you.”

“No.” Matty shook their head. “We were both too drunk. And it was a bit of a mess. He’s just… dealing with things I guess, I think this is him finally realising that maybe he’s not entirely straight, and I’m going to leave him to deal with that in his own time, you know? Because I feel like it’s reached this point, where we both like each other, and we both know that we do, but we’re not going to do anything about it, you know? Not yet. But, like, that’s okay. Because it doesn’t  _ need _ to happen like instantly, you know, because it’s not like, it’s going to be next week and I won’t want to kiss him anymore. Like… it’s going to happen when it happens. It’s going to happen when it should.”

“You’ve been thinking a lot, haven’t you?” Matty didn’t even have to answer that one for Gemma to know that it was true.

“Not really, just… there’s been a lot of things. There’s been a lot of people.” Matty trailed off, biting their fingernails. “I had this boyfriend, you know? For like a few weeks, a little while back. I never told you about him, because I knew you would tell me to dump him instantly, that he was bad for me and manipulative, because he was. And I always knew that. I just didn’t want to deal with it.”

“ _ Matty _ …” Gemma’s eyes grew wide.

“I thought I was happy, you know?” Their voice grew quieter. “It’s fucking absurd. Looking back, looking back at that and knowing that I thought wholeheartedly that it was the happiest I’d ever be. But he told me that a lot. He wanted me to think that. He was a dick, he was. His name’s Charlie. I don’t know if I should hate him, though, because still, he’s just a person.”

“Matty… that’s like… emotional abuse-”

“But he called me ‘she’, he accepted me as a girl, and that was enough. Because I needed someone to do that for me. I needed to feel validated. That was that was about. But then it all turned sour, because of course it would. And I broke up with him, and that morning, I honestly, I think it’s the bravest I’ve been in my life. Because there was a moment that morning when he snapped, and just… punched the wall, and like… I still can’t stop thinking about it now, like that could have been me-”

“Fucking  _ hell _ -”

“It was a good thing in the end.” Matty decided, for the risk of sounding just a little bit absurd. “Just hear me out, alright? Because it got me here. It got me to realise that I’m worth something. I’m worth more than fucking boys that’ll snap like that for no reason. I shouldn’t be used, and I shouldn’t believe everyone who tells me they love me. And that’s important.”

“You should have  _ told _ me.” Gemma insisted, eyes growing wider by the minute.

“I should have.” Matty shrugged, pulling their gaze away. “But I didn’t. And I can’t change that, you know? It shaped me in the end, so it wasn’t like it didn’t mean anything at all.”

“Still, you shouldn’t have had to go through that-”

“I’ve already heard that all from George, alright? The whole, ‘I’ll fucking kill him speech’” Matty snorted. “It’s okay. I get it. But I’m alright.”

“Sorry.” Gemma bit her lip, leaving herself to think for a moment. “He loves you. George.” She looked up at Matty. “You’d believe him, wouldn’t you?”

Matty hesitated for a moment. “I don’t know.”

Gemma looked at them as if they were mad.

“At this party. We went along to this party. And I got him drunk even though he didn’t want me to, but we got absolutely pissed, and things got messy and we had a little argument, not a real fight, just a tiff, or something like that. But he went off with some girl. She sucked him off in the bathroom. Fucking  _ epitome _ of romance, that. But it hurt, you know? I know we’re not-... it  _ hurt _ .”

“ _ Talk to him _ .” Gemma stressed like it was the most important thing in the world.

“I did.” Matty smiled, blushing a little. “We’re good. I mean, we both did some shitty things, but we’re okay, and you know? That’s why I don’t want to rush into anything? Maybe things will happen, maybe they won’t. But if they do it’s because they should, and if they don’t, it’s because they shouldn’t.”

Gemma wasn’t sure she was entirely convinced of that - the whole putting your life into fate’s hands thing. But still, she smiled and she nodded.

And that night, they sat together and got far too drunk to care about right and wrong, and whether Matty really did have their entire world sorted out or not, and if not, whether they ever really would. And if that - the not knowing - was really just so much more than okay in the end.

-

“No, George, I think the  _ exact  _ words you used were ‘I didn’t like it because it wasn’t Matty’.” 

George buried his head in his hands; Ross was right, after all.

“So you are. Quite a bit in love with them, don’t you think?” Ross’ voice continued, oddly soothing from down the phone. George wondered if it was just down to the fact that he spoke like he had all the answers, and perhaps that was the kind of guidance George needed at that moment.

“What do I  _ do _ about that, though?” George trailed off, biting at his fingernails as he cast his gaze across his bedroom walls, settling on one very particular photograph. The one of him and Matty, of course.

“Being in love with them?” Ross asked, finding it odd that George had actually finally come to accept what he was saying.

“My sexuality.” George finished for him. He let out a sigh, stretching his legs out across his bed and getting to his feet.

“You don’t really  _ have to _ . I mean…” Ross thought for a moment. “I didn’t really  _ do _ anything, like… when I realised I was gay. I didn’t like suddenly wake up from the middle of a deep sleep with an uncontrollable urge to go and suck a dick, or anything like that.”

George snorted. He stopped for a moment, finding himself stood before the photograph. The one Matty had taken. He stood - just  _ looking _ . Looking at the two of them like that,  _ together _ . The photograph itself seemed to radiate an essence of peacefulness and safety. Even as his fingers brushed over the corner, a sudden warmth shot through his veins.

“So like… I mean… I knew I was gay, like… I mean, I sort of always figured something was up, and then there was kind of an ‘oh shit’ moment where everything just made sense. And it was like… eleven at night like two years ago, and I was sort of just laid in bed like ‘oh shit, I’m gay’. And then I… I just went to sleep. Like… I didn’t magically transform into a human rainbow or something. I just went to sleep, and I got up again in the morning and went to school. And it was kind of funny really, because I’d actually managed to  _ forget _ . Until like… maths class, and there was this guy that I thought was cute, and then I made eye contact with him, and  _ then _ . Then I was kind of like ‘ _ oh shit _ ’. And like, I couldn’t really concentrate on maths very well after that, but I didn’t necessarily  _ do _ anything.”

George smiled, forcing his fingers away from the photograph. “You never told me that, you know?”

“You never asked.” Ross supplied, his voice trailing off a little way. “It’s not that I didn’t  _ want _ to tell you, it’s just that I assumed you really weren't that interested, seeing as you’re straight.”

“But I’m not straight.” George concluded, turning away from the photograph and placing his back against the wall.

“Oh?” Ross’ eyes grew wide; George had somehow neglected to share such a conclusion with him, or well, anyone.

“I’ve had some more thoughts.” George continued, biting at his lip. “And I don’t think they’re really thoughts that straight people have.”

“ _ Oh _ …” Ross struggled to remain entirely composed.

“Because it’s a bit  _ different _ with Matty, isn’t it? Like… since they’re genderqueer. Like… if I was to date Matty-  _ hypothetically _ . Would that be a gay or a straight relationship?” 

Ross couldn’t quite figure as to whether the question was intended to be rhetorical or not. “That’d be something to ask them, really. What they would feel most comfortable-”

“It’s not  _ either _ , though.” George cut into Ross’ sentence, sounding oddly sure of himself. “It’s just a  _ relationship _ . So I stopped thinking about that, you know?”

“Alright…” Ross trailed off: not quite managing to follow George’s point here.

“But Matty’s got a dick.” George continued, voice quieter than before. “And it’s… I shouldn’t put them down to their dick, because I know they wouldn’t like that, but. If I…  _ hypothetically _ … I…” George stopped himself. “I’m not really sure about other people with dicks, but… Matty… and Matty’s dick… that’s something I’d be okay with…  _ happy _ with… you know?”

“ _ George _ .” Ross let out a groan - desperate to save himself from any kind of oversharing that George might have been inclined to do.

“I think it’s more about the person, not the dick.” George concluded, pausing for a moment. “More about the person in general, than what they’ve got between their legs. And I think it’s just chance that I’ve just been with girls before. And I think… in general, that’s a very… non-heterosexual way to think about things.”

“So, you’re like bi, or pan, or something like that?” Ross was rather relieved than George had finally been able to come to a conclusion with this, and had still spared him a full description of his feelings regarding Matty’s dick.

“I don’t know.” George laughed, lips curving up into a grin.

“So… do you  _ want _ to do something about that?” Ross thought for a moment. “Because I mean, you’ve basically come out to me, now. So you’ve done something. I never came out to anyone for months-”

“I’m in a bit of a different situation, though, aren’t I?” George gave way to a grin.

“Yeah, I reckon.” And then before Ross could quite think of what else to say, the worst idea had already planted itself firmly into George’s mind.

“I’m gonna go and see Matty.”

Ross practically choked on thin air. “You’re g-”

“Yeah. Got something to say, haven’t I?” George’s smile took little time in curving up into a grin. “I’ll text you later. Bye.”

And for the few minutes that followed, as the silence closed in, Ross just stared at his phone - dumbfounded, beyond belief. And if anything, just overly eager to try and contemplate just what kind of text he’d possibly receive from George that evening.

-

Matty answered the door covered entirely in an old tatty blanket - wrapped around them like it was a cocoon. Their hair was sticking out from under the blanket slightly: sticking up wildly, and falling all over the place. Their face was an unpleasant shade of pale, looking the kind of sick that worried George enough to stop him from even asking just why Matty was cocooned up in a blanket at four in the afternoon.

“Fuck…” Matty’s jaw tumbled from their mouth the very moment they realised that it was indeed George stood before them. “Sorry, I-”

“Hey…” George stepped forward, eyeing Matty carefully. “Are you sick or something?”

Matty shook their head. “No, just  _ really  _ hungover.” They glanced up at George, blushing a bright shade of red, and really they couldn’t help themself, because really, they were well aware as to how much of an idiot they looked.

“Do you want me to leave you to get some sleep?” George smiled, glancing down at Matty’s blanket.

Matty thought for a moment, but then shook their head. “No. You came over for a reason - I’m guessing. And I’m bored, and lonely, and I want someone else to make me a cup of tea, in the midst of my life threatening illness.

George rolled his eyes, but closed the door behind himself regardless. “Such a drama queen, you.”

“Shut up.” Matty rolled their eyes. “I’m not. I am  _ deathly _ sick.” They added, just for the sake of it.

George wasn’t convinced. But smiled at them regardless. “Alright, you go and lie down and be so very  _ ill _ , while I make you that cup of tea.”

Matty met George with a smile, before stumbling back into the living room and throwing themself back down onto the sofa. Matty spread the blanket back out and stared up at the ceiling - contemplating life, the universe, their current situation, and how nice George’s back was - the usual.

George returned just two minutes later, with a cup of tea for the both of them, and a plate of biscuits, because there just wasn’t a doubt that chocolate digestives could solve anything.

“So what happened, then?” George inquired, sitting himself down on the very end of the sofa, moving Matty’s feet out of the way to allow himself to do so. “Last night.”

Matty groaned, pulling themself up, as they turned to face George. “I sorted things with Gemma.”

“Oh-” George wasn’t quite sure how that had lead them to such a state.

“That involved a lot of vodka, and then a lot of wine. And then it’s two in the morning and we’re sat in her kitchen trying to make cupcakes when we’re absolutely hammered.” Matty moved closer to George. “Really, I can’t remember the most of it. But they were shit cupcakes. I think we put vodka in them for some reason.”

George snorted. “You’re an idiot, you are.”

Matty pushed their head into George’s lap. “You’re so very charming, you are.”

“I made you  _ tea _ .” George protested, getting a little red in the face - not that it could possibly have anything to do with Matty’s head in his lap, at all.

“You did.” Matty agreed, kicking the blanket off of their legs and down onto the other end of the sofa. “Thank you.” They added, sitting up again, and reaching for one of the biscuits George had set out onto a plate. “You’re an angel, really.”

And then, George properly blushed: so hard that his entire face turned bright red, and he had to bite down onto his bottom lip to keep himself from exploding.

Miraculously, Matty hadn’t seemed to have noticed; they were, instead, awfully enthralled with the biscuits George had set out for them.

It was then, however, that George’s eyes drifted downwards, and really came to notice that it didn’t look like Matty was wearing anymore than a t-shirt. In their defense, it was a long t-shirt: covering the majority of their thighs,  _ but _ , it was still just a t-shirt. And it was still doing things to George’s heart. Perhaps the same kind of non-heterosexual things that he had spoken to Ross about earlier.

He contemplated his situation for a moment - how he’d come over, confident that he had a firm grasp on his life and his head. And then all that it had taken to shatter that was Matty, sat there beside him - hungover, in just a t-shirt.

By the time George had found himself back in reality, Matty had scoffed the most of the biscuits, and taken his tea in hand, curling up almost neatly beside him.

“You alright?” George asked him, following their distant gaze out across the living room.

Matty gave a nod, pressing their head against George’s bicep.

“Just tired, and shitty. But I’m probably not going to throw up now, so that’s good, because I don’t think you’d like me very much if I puked all over your lap.” Matty grinned, glancing down at George’s lap as they spoke. And George laughed along too, even though he knew it wasn’t true.

“And what about you?” Matty continued, pressing a finger into George’s arm insistently. “Why did you come over in the first place? I mean, apart from, just to see me - I mean, why wouldn’t you, but-”

George shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t want to bother you with it now.” He reached a hand to Matty’s head, twirling a curl around his finger.

“It’s not a bother.” Matty insisted, leaning into George’s touch. “Tell me.  _ Please _ . I’m guessing it had to be important for you to come running over to tell me.”

George shrugged, contemplating opening his mouth to respond, only to be cut off by the slam of the front door, and Matty’s heart pounding in their chest - so much so that George could feel it from where they were pressed together.

“Who’s-” George didn’t quite manage to get the words out of his mouth, before Matty stumbled to their feet, rushing to the living room door.

“Hey… uhh…” Matty pushed the door open slightly, leaving George, sat on the sofa, and quite unaware as to quite who stood in the hallway.

“What’s going on?” The voice that answered Matty was rather blunt - that was evident, even through the wall.

“Nothing.” Matty insisted, cheeks turning red. “Just-... sort of…”

The living room door was pushed open. George stared across the room at a younger boy, just a little shorter than Matty, but bearing all the same features; this had to be their brother.

George wasn’t quite sure why, but he found his stomach flipping in his chest, as he got to his feet, feeling rather like he was taking up entirely too much space in the room, as he glanced anxiously between Matty and Louis.

Louis’ eyes widened, but he didn’t comment upon the situation. He simply glanced once more between Matty and George, before he dumped his school bag down in the corner, and crossed the living room towards the kitchen.

Matty remained almost entirely frozen until Louis was safely behind the kitchen door. In that moment, they turned to George: a whole new world of emotion seeming to have collected up in their eyes as they faced him, and just struggled to think of anything to say.

“That your brother?” George already knew the answer, because found the need to fill the silence.

Matty gave a nod, biting down at their fingernails.

George didn’t have time to think of anything else to say, before Louis appeared back in the living room, now with a glass of water in hand.

“So…” Louis took yet another look between Matty and George, before standing with his back to the wall, sipping on his glass of water.

“So?” Matty raised their eyebrows, meeting their brother with an almost challenging kind of look: something the situation demanded.

“ _ So _ …” Louis turned away from Matty entirely, and instead looked up towards George. “You George, then?”

George’s cheeks flushed red. “Yeah.” He murmured, shooting a fleeting glance across towards Matty, who was yet to move away from the door.

“Thought so.” Louis turned his lips up into a smile. “Would be pretty awkward if you weren’t though, wouldn’t it?” He cracked a grin. George smiled more out of courtesy than anything else. And Matty stood there, wanting to die.

“You done?” Matty raised their eyebrows, meeting Louis with a sterner look to their eyes. “Didn’t realise you had to  _ interrogate _ every one of my friends-”

“I’ve barely said three words to him.” Louis folded his arms across his chest. “I was just making conversation, you know? If I was  _ interrogating _ him, I’d probably start with asking just what you two were doing in here before I got home, especially since you’re hardly wearing any clothes.”

“I…” George’s words were clumsy at best: unsure of quite what he could say for himself.

Matty cheeks burned an incarcerating shade of red; if Louis had given them ample time to explain themself, Matty doubted they were even in much of a situation to do so.

“But I’m  _ not _ interrogating him.” Louis offered George a smile. “So, I’m not going to ask, I’m going to mind my own business.”

George took one moment just to allow himself to wonder just what Matty could have possibly said to Louis about him that would leave such an impression.

“It’s not…” Matty trailed off: overcompensating for the silence with hand gestures. “I’m ill, you know? And George was here to… look after me.”

“You’re hungover.” Louis’ lips twitched up into a smirk. “I’m not an idiot.”

“Fuck- is it obvious?” Matty grew even paler than they already were.

Louis shrugged, taking a moment to consider their situation. “You mean does mum know?” Matty couldn’t help but nod. “You know she would have yelled at you for calling into work if you weren’t actually  _ ill _ .”

“For your  _ information _ .” Matty folded their arms across their chest. “I have thrown up  _ three  _ times today.” They even went as far as to hold up three of their fingers in emphasis. “Not actually ill - fuck off.”

George couldn’t help but snort. “Your own fault though, isn’t it?”

Louis raised his eyebrows in George’s direction. “Exactly.”

“Oh  _ fuck  _ off _. _ ” Matty uttered without the slightest ounce of conviction in the world.

George grinned across at them. “It is though.”

“Whatever you say.” Matty rolled their eyes and pushed the door open, glancing back at George just once before making their way through the door and up the stairs.

George stood for a moment - somehow hesitant to follow Matty upstairs. For a brief moment, he glanced across at Louis, and for that brief moment, the two of them shared a look, in which little short of the whole world was conveyed.

And as George reached the door, Louis stopped him with a sudden comment: perhaps even taking the both of them by surprise.

“Don’t fuck up, you know?” Louis bit his lip: a little unsure as to quite how to phrase his words. “Don’t take advantage of them. Don’t be a dickhead.  _ Alright _ ?”

George pulled his lips up into a smile, finding the situation awfully sweet. “Alright. Promise.” But despite the humour he found in the situation, there just wasn’t an ounce of doubt in his words.

-

“That was  _ horrifying _ .” Matty declared: sprawled out across their bed, the very moment George walked into their room.

George struggled to subdue a grin, sitting himself down at Matty’s feet. “Why? He seems nice. Cares about, you know? A lot.”

“What do you mean?” Matty didn’t doubt the truth behind that, just struggled to see quite where George had extracted it from.

“What he said to me, after you’d gone.” George lowered his voice slightly. “About not being a dickhead to you.” He hesitated before he quite managed to continue. “He wasn’t interrogating me, either. I think you were being a bit harsh on him, not to sound like a dickhead, or anything.”

Matty let out a groan, burying their head into their pillow. “It was just…  _ awkward _ . You know… especially… when he was like… asking you if you were George… and…” Matty’s face only grew more red by the second.

“And?” George cracked a smile, meeting Matty’s gaze with all the adoration in the world. “What have you said to him about me? Been talking shit?” George raised his eyebrows, meeting Matty with a smirk.

“Shut up.” Matty let out a groan, kicking at George with his feet. “You know I’ve not got one bad word to say about you in the whole world.”

“That’s such a fucking lie.” George couldn’t help but snort, grin almost glued to his face.

“It’s not.” Matty insisted: half as loud as before, but uttered with twice the sincerity.

“You called me an idiot, what? Fifteen minutes ago?” George fell into a laugh, moving over to the other side of the bed, and sitting himself down adjacent to Matty.

“Didn’t mean it, though.” Matty sat up a little, pushing their head against George’s side. “I didn’t tell him anything bad about you.”

“Then why are you so embarrassed?” George, unbelievably, still hadn’t quite gotten it.

“Got all soppy about you, didn’t I?” Matty attempted to discard the merit of their words with a dash of self-deprecation - it didn’t even come close to working.

George’s eyes grew wide, yet seconds later, he was unable to stop the laughter.

“ _What_?” Matty moaned, pressing their head into George’s arm, almost just to be petty.

“To your thirteen year old brother?” George struggled to quite imagine how that conversation could have possibly gone down. “Just sat down with him like, there’s this guy called George, and he’s like really tall, and really handsome, and really amazing, and… like really  _ angelic,  _ and all that.”

“Nah.” Matty glanced up at George like he was mad. “I was a bit more eloquent about it than that.”

George rolled his eyes: unable to gauge just how serious Matty was being. “Whatever it is, I’m not fussed, alright? Like you could have told him how much of a bellend I am, because it’s true, isn’t it? I was a bit of a bellend to you. So that’s fair, isn’t it? For you to express that opinion.”

Matty nodded along in pacified agreement, pretending that they hadn’t, in fact, detailed to Louis just how in love with George they were. Because maybe things were easier to deal with that way.

“You were going to say…” Matty was quick to draw the conversation away from the subject - instead drawing it back to the question that had left their lips just before Louis had arrived home. “About why you came.”

“Oh…” George’s cheeks flushed red. Matty eyed him wordlessly. “I was, yeah.”

Matty offered him a nod, getting to their feet, and pushing open the window above their bed. George was left to watch as Matty stumbled around their room in search of their jacket, rummaging through the pockets, and eventually retrieving a packet of cigarettes. With the cigarettes in hand, Matty returned to the bed, a sense of pride and accomplishment slathered across their face.

As Matty positioned themself beneath the window, opening the packet of cigarettes, George rolled his eyes, placing a lighter into their hands.

“Oh…” Matty blushed, looking down at the lighter. “Thanks.” They offered, lighting a cigarette, before pressing the lighter back into George’s hands, along with the packet of cigarettes. “Have one.”

“Alright.” George sounded much less enthusiastic about the prospect than he was; his mind unable to stray awfully far off the subject of what had initially brought him to Matty’s.

“It’s something you don’t really want to talk about, isn’t it?” Matty gathered, watching as George lit himself a cigarette. He gave a nod. “You can have more than one. If you need to. It’s alright.”

And they sat there, faced towards each other, with all the peace and calm in the world, sharing cigarettes like they were petty childhood secrets, and they were once again, bright-eyed, over-curious children - with so much hope for the world, the kind of hope you couldn’t quite find in the butt of a cigarette. But with every smile shared, they felt like that again: young, innocent, and in love, not just with each other, but with the world again.

But then, the silence ended, as the afternoon skies darkened, and the secrets they kept didn’t remain quite as petty anymore.

“How did you know you weren’t straight?” 

George was overly soft-spoken, words leaving his lips with a well merited hesitance. To put it simply, he was nervous, attempting to ball up every part of himself inside of his bones.

Matty seemed to entirely freeze for a moment, cigarette dropping ash down onto their thighs. And even as their skin burned with the impact, their eyes remained glassed over, struggling to deal with quite what this could mean, quite what this could bring forth, and in turn, the time they’d have to delve back into.

“Got fucked in the ass and liked it.” Matty at first opted for nonchalance, for the first answer that came into their mind: desperate to brush this off, and over everything else, quite unable to look George in the eye.

George grinned, stifling a laughter. “Well, yeah, I guess, but…” He trailed off: unsure if there was a better way to phrase it. “But like… I mean, you didn’t just go and get fucked in the ass in the first place, for like, the sake of it. How did you like… start to… know?”

Matty bit their lip, digging their fingernails down into the pale skin of their thigh. “Are you really interested in… the  _ story _ ? Because it’s… a mess, honestly. Or do you just…?” Matty trailed off, meeting George with a rather blunt look in their eyes. “What do you want out of this, George?”

Truthfully, George didn’t quite know how to answer that question.

“I want…” He trailed off. “I want to know, how you figured out you weren’t straight. How it all started. What you thought. And when you  _ knew _ .”

“Because it’s a…” Matty was perhaps overly hesitant, but with good reason. “It’s a long… kind of complicated story, and… if you just want to figure out if  _ you’re _ straight or not, you can just kiss me or whatever. And that’d take like ten seconds.”

George’s heart skipped a beat. But his mind caught hold of him before it was too late.

“You can kiss anyone and like it. They just have to be a good kisser.” George shrugged, playing it off as if he was significantly less affected by Matty’s offer than he was. “I’m talking about like…  _ properly _ . Emotionally, and physically, and everything.”

“Then fuck it, we’re probably going to need another pack of cigarettes.” Matty’s voice was blunt, perhaps overly so.

George met them with a smile, and produced another packet from his inside pocket.

Matty couldn’t subdue their grin. “You’re amazing, you are. Honestly. I mean that.”

George let his cheeks turn red, as Matty parted their lips, and cast their mind back over to years gone by.

“You know… Sarah…? That girl-” Matty began at the only place they could think to. It wasn’t the most comfortable of situations and not something they really wanted to ever explain to anyone. But George was just different somehow.

“Your first girlfriend?” George drew his mind back to the conversation they’d had at the coffeeshop. “The one who thought you were secretly gay? The one whose house the party was at?”

“Yeah.” Matty nodded, inhaling deeply before continuing. “Well so, she decided that I was secretly gay, and that was a bit… well… I was sixteen and like it kind of fucked with my head, didn’t it? I mean, I knew I thought I wasn’t gay, like you never… like you always just assume that  _ you _ couldn’t possibly be anything more than straight. And I thought I was even comfortable with that, but then it kind of went around, you know?”

“What that she thought you were gay?” George moved closer to Matty instinctively: trying so very hard to protect them, even from the past.

“No. She went around and told everyone that I  _ was _ gay. Well, not everyone. But she bitched to her friends about it, and about me, and of course, it went around. We were in school - what else was going to happen? And I got shit for it, and I wasn’t really that fussed, because it was just gossip, just jokes, really. And I went around at parties kissing every girl I could - just to make a point against it, but then there got to a point where girls just didn’t kiss me… just didn’t look at me the same anymore, and that was weird. Because I sort of  _ needed _ to kiss girls… you know?”

George found that he didn’t completely understand what it was that Matty was getting at, but nodded along regardlessly.

“And then we were at this party, it was like an end of school kind of thing. Sarah had thrown it, and I really wouldn’t have been invited or wanted to go, but it was like  _ the _ party, like end of exams and everything - everyone went. So I turned up and got a bit drunk, and then…” Matty felt a smile slipping over their lips.

“Then what?” George raised his eyebrows slightly, growing more intrigued with Matty’s story by the minute.

“Sarah came over to me. Because of course she did. She was really quite drunk, to be fair, but she was being a bitch. So I told her to fuck off, and she didn’t listen, and she looked ready to fucking slap me or something… but then… Gemma. Gemma… who’d had really too much drunk, but lovely,  _ lovely _ Gemma, who’d always been so nice through all of this, came up and punched her. It was… she wasn’t fucking around. She properly… she had a black eye. It was simultaneously terrifying and life changing. And Sarah’s friends looked about ready to kill us, but Gemma sort of looked a bit mad that night - she was going through an emo phase at the time, that didn’t really help - she looked like she’d really lost it. But no one from school ever said shit to me again. I mean, I never really saw most of them again, but everyone shut the  _ fuck _ up.”

“That’s honestly amazing.” George’s face grew wide into a smile. “I mean… it was shit that everyone was treating you like that in the first place, but, Gemma’s amazing, honestly.”

“Yeah…” Matty trailed off, voice lowering a little as they drew closer to the part of that night that they were perhaps slightly less than comfortable with recounting. “It was. And then Gemma looked like she was going to throw up, which was slightly less amazing, when I was holding her hair back when she puked her guts up like ten minutes later.”

George gave a smile. “We’ve all been there.”

“But then she went to go and get a glass of water, and told me to wait for her there. And I… you know… there are some parts of your memory that are vague and fuzzy, but this whole  _ experience _ , it’s the clearest thing in my mind.”

“Usually the bad things that are like that…” George trailed off, watching Matty carefully. “For me, at least.”

“I don’t know… if this was  _ bad _ , it was just… very confusing. Because Sarah has this brother, he’s like a few years older, I think he was nineteen, maybe twenty. You know, I never really asked.” Matty forced out a nervous laugh. “His name’s James, and you know? I’d been with Sarah for quite a while, so I knew him sort of vaguely. And like, he knew about all the rumours and everything. And he’d sort of been vaguely about for her party, but not really - he was mostly upstairs in his room, it was the attic, and it was always so cold… and… when Gemma left me there upstairs to wait for her, he came out of nowhere, and dragged me by the wrist and took me upstairs.”

Matty’s eyes grew wide: the moment frozen perhaps forever in their mind.

“And I was scared, you know? Because I didn’t know what was going on, and- but then… he  _ smiled _ at me. And it was such a stark smile, that seemed to contradict every part of that evening that I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. But then he kissed me.”

“ _ Oh… _ ” George wondered if he ought to have guessed that it was where the story had been going, but still, it had his heart fluttering inside his chest.

“Just pushed me up against the wall and kissed me. Like…  _ properly _ . I don’t think my brain was even working properly, so I didn’t really have any concept of time, but it must have lasted at least like a minute or two.” Matty hid their face away behind their hands. “And at first I thought he was doing it as a joke, to wind me up or whatever, or like Sarah had told him to or something… but it was like… you don’t kiss someone like that for a joke.”

“Don’t tell me you got revenge by fucking her brother?” George’s eyes grew wide with disbelief.

Matty shook their head, blushing. “No, we didn’t fuck. We barely even spoke. We stopped kissing, and then just looked at each other for a moment. And then he asked me if I liked it. And I… I didn’t really know what was going on in my brain, with emotions, and how drunk I was, and everything, but I said yes. And looking back, I don’t know whether that was the truth or not. But he kissed me again. And we just sat up in his room for like an hour… like…  _ kissing _ .”

“So was that when you knew?” George asked, trying to focus on anything other than Matty making out with this guy for so long.

Matty went as far as to laugh at that one. “I knew absolutely fucking nothing that night. Gemma eventually thought I’d been killed or something, so she texted me to ask where I was, because the party had got sort of awkward since she’d punched Sarah, you know? So I told James that she was looking for me, and we said bye, and then I went with Gemma, Amber, and Marika and got pissed in the park instead.”

Matty let out a sigh, letting their memory fade out a little way. “I never said anything, you know? I never properly came out to Gemma. I never told her about what happened. We just got drunk and forgot about it.”

“How long was it until you told her that you’d kissed him?” George couldn’t help but wonder. “What did she  _ say _ ?”

“I never… I never did.” Matty admitted, cheeks turning red. “I’ve never told anyone this story, you know?”

“Oh…” George’s eyes grew impossibly wide. “I’m sorry, I-”

“It’s fine.” Matty breathed a sigh of relief. “I think I need to.”

George watched as Matty finished their cigarette, stubbed it out in the ashtray, and lit themself another. 

“I was really confused after that, you know? Because I wasn’t gay, and I didn’t  _ want _ to be gay, because you know? I’d gotten so much shit for it, and I was very happy to just avoid everything. Seeing as I could, you know? With school over, and that I never had to see anyone again.” Matty shook their head, trailing off. “But one week into summer, James turns up on my doorstep with a smile, and an apology, and the jacket I’d left in his room.”

“Quite the romantic.” George raised his eyebrows, leaving Matty to only blush further with recollection of the situation. “So… you and him… then… so you  _ did _ fuck your ex-girlfriend’s brother in the end? You’re beyond petty, you-”

“No,  _ George _ .” Matty let out a sigh. “We didn’t date. We didn’t… we just snuck around with each other, and kissed in empty houses, and sometimes spent nights out together, off somewhere else where we wouldn’t be recognised. And it was all so fake, and such bullshit, because he was never my boyfriend, but I was sixteen, and confused, and he was my whole world. And I never really… I still never really knew what was going on with my sexuality. I don’t think he did either. We never really talked about things like that.”

“Really?” George met them with confusion. “Thought it might have come up, you know? Just once?”

“We never really talked about proper things at all. He told me I had pretty eyes and left hickeys down my neck, and bought me scarves to cover them up, and I told him that it was August and that he was an idiot, so I grew my hair out instead. And then he told me that it suited me, that I had pretty eyes, and pretty curls. And he left hickeys down my chest instead. But we never talked. Not really. We only ever talked to fill the silence, not because we had anything really to say.”

“You loved him… didn’t you?” George’s voice was quiet, bitter even.

Matty met him with eyes blown wide, and almost horrified at the prospect. “Where the fuck would you get that from?”

“The way you talk about him.” George told them rather simply. “It’s okay, you know? You were sixteen and-”

“Stupid.” Matty finished for him. “It was a stupid summer. Because he went off to university in the autumn. And I never saw him again. And he’s got a nice little girlfriend now, and he can sit around, living his nice little ‘heterosexual’ life, pretending that summer never happened… but… I guess I did too… because I never said a word of it either.”

“Just because he was a dickhead didn’t mean you never loved him. And just because he treated you badly doesn’t make you wrong for loving him. You were sixteen and-”

“And it took me two years to realise I shouldn’t let people treat me like that.” Matty snapped, voice growing bitter.

They breathed a sigh, meeting George with pleading apologetic eyes, as they moved to his side, burying their face into his jumper.

“We only fucked once.” Matty’s voice was quiet, barely even audible: soft and muffled against George’s chest. “And that was when I got fucked in the ass and liked it.” They managed a snort. “But still, that wasn’t when everything made sense. Because I liked that… I liked being  _ fucked _ , and I gathered from that, that I  _ had _ to be, just a bit, gay, you know? Because I liked it a lot. And I liked kissing him a lot. And I liked him alot, and-...” Matty gave way to a sigh.

“What?” George prompted for them to continue.

“You’re right.” Matty bit their lip. “About how I felt about him. I’m not going to  _ say _ it. But you’re right. Course you are.”

“That’s okay.” George assured them, moving a hand to Matty’s hair.

“And then I missed him that autumn. And it hurt like fucking  _ hell _ . But I was too scared to deal with myself or anything until next spring.” Matty fell into another sigh. “I never said a word to Gemma, to anyone, and I went out and eventually went back to kissing girls at parties, and no one ever thought I was anything but straight anymore. But it… felt…  _ different _ . I missed something. I never quite figured out whether it was  _ him _ I missed, or just being with a guy.”

George watched as Matty just sat and thought for a moment: giving them the time to breathe, to be as comfortable with the situation as they could be.

“I was seventeen when I went to a gay club for the first time.” Matty eventually continued, voice growing a little hoarse. “And it was all bright lights, and too many drinks. And I was very overwhelmed, and only just seventeen. And maybe it was a bad decision. But I needed to know. You know? About my sexuality. And I couldn’t  _ talk _ to anyone. So I just, I went out… and this guy bought me a drink in the end, and he told me I looked young, and I told him I was eighteen, and he fucked me in the bathroom. It was dirty, disgusting, and uncomfortable. But I felt like I had before again. Like I had that last summer.”

Matty bit down on their bottom lip, forcing themself to raise their voice. “So… yeah… got fucked in the ass and liked it. That was when I knew.”

“You’re brave, you know?” George told him: meaning every word. “Like… you go through so much - so much that you never talk to anyone about, and it’s… you’re amazing, you know?”

“Alright.” Matty rolled their eyes. “Let’s not get sappy.” George couldn’t stop the blush that followed. “But I never… I never used the word  _ ‘gay _ ’ or… anything… like I never defined my sexuality, and I never really  _ talked _ about it. Eventually like a few months later I got really drunk and told Gemma about all these guys I’d fucked with. But we never talked about sexuality, nothing properly… like… I never even considered my sexuality until I…”

Matty’s eyes grew wide.

‘Until I met someone who made me feel that same way again’.

They bit the words back: swallowing them with every ounce of their pride.

“Until  _ recently _ .” Matty explained, tearing their gaze away from George’s. “About the time I started questioning my gender. About the time I first saw you.”

Matty didn’t ask George whether that was enough - whether they’d answered his question, and George didn’t push anything more from Matty either. Instead, they just stayed together, coming to a silent agreement that they’d said entirely too much for one day.

And at first, they just sat there, smoking with each other. Smoking until they almost ran out of cigarettes. But George still wasn’t quite ready to leave, so Matty brought them up cups of tea, and George put a movie on.

And they lay together like that. Happy.

Matty didn’t pay much attention to the film, instead watching George, and the way he laughed, and the way his eyes shined in the evening light. He was beautiful - truly, undeniably,  _ beautiful. _

And Matty stood by their words, even if they were sappy rhetoric at best, for even in the coldest of rooms, and the darkest of nights, George shone gold. 

Gold like the summer sun.

Reminiscent of the beauty in a summer that had long passed them by.

-


	9. i hate myself

By this point, it was hardly even surprising when George woke up and found himself lying in bed next to Matty.

After all this time, it had just sort of become a  _ them _ thing. Nothing they could quite ever explain, but yet, nothing they ever really felt a pressing need to.

George was hesitant to wake Matty - who looked so peaceful and content with the world and everything in it - as they lay curled up into his side, with dark curls falling across their face, shading their sleeping eyes from the early morning sun. He struggled out of Matty’s grasp, taking care not to wake them, and sat himself up underneath the window.

He sat and considered the moment for a while. How Matty’s house, Matty’s bedroom, Matty’s  _ bed _ , could feel so much like home. And then, how he really should have left last night, before they got too tired and too comfortable with each other to even consider common sense.

He wondered how long this could last - this feigned innocence, this quiet, subdued hope for something more. How long they’d last like this, in still early mornings, sharing secrets in each other’s beds, holding smiles dear long after they had faded.

George wouldn’t call himself a pessimist, or even a realist, just someone who’s been through life, through relationships, through close early mornings that had meant the world, but had lived enough to eventually see them all fade. He couldn’t doubt that much the same wouldn’t come for the two of them in the end. That one day this would stop. And there’d be a last time. A mess no amount of apologies could cover.

It was quite a harrowing thought for seven forty eight in the morning, but still, George couldn’t help himself. Much as he couldn’t help his eyes from clinging to Matty’s sleeping form: soft, and content, with pale skin, illuminated in the sunlight, and the slight twitch of a smile upon their lips - soft, content, and beautiful.

By eight o’clock, Matty had stirred too, shooting George a disapproving glance, before settling themself firmly into his lap, and stealing his cigarette right from his fingertips. George didn’t even pretend to mind.

They exchanged hazy compliments, and half-hearted insults, speaking only in soft, hushed whispers, that seemed to act as the posterchildren for love, for easy mornings, for the good life. Something all so out of reach.

And in the morning air, in each other’s warmth, Matty and George sat there, still, quiet, and in love, but in search of much more pressing secrets to keep, in search of anything they might once be able to hide from each other. The situation demanded no answers, no explanation, because love was not a question, love was not a demand, love was not a hushed whisper, love was not the early morning sun, love was not the two of them and what the rest of the world might think.

Love just was. Beyond everything else, right through their skin, and down to their bones, there was love, tying them together, as if they had just always been the two opposite ends of the same piece of string.

But the sun rose. As it always would, and the morning settled in around them with an unforgiving kind of permanence and sincerity, and Matty blinked harshly: hesitant to take in the stark colours of their bedroom walls. The birds stopped singing, and the quiet faded out around them - the world woke up, with kitchen sounds from downstairs, and Matty sat there, heart-racing, hating the notion of dealing with the day.

“I…” George dragged his words out slowly: tentative whispers ready to get lost up in a cloud of smoke. “I… should probably like…  _ leave _ , shouldn’t I?”

Matty knew it was true. Matty knew George was right; he had such a knack of being so. But still, they didn’t say a word. Instead, they sat and pulled at the hem of their t-shirt, before moving to pick at a scab on their knee.

George moved his hand over to Matty’s, pulling their fingers away. “Don’t pick at it.” He chided, almost maternally.

Matty threw him a face, setting their back against George’s chest, and losing the moment in a drag of their cigarette - well, George’s cigarette, as it had originally been.

“Yeah.” Matty eventually found the words, struggling to compensate with overconfidence, and the treasured notion that this was all simple and easy. “You probably should.”

“Yeah.” George gave a nod, but instead sat and thought about how much he really didn’t want to.

“Still, I don’t really see anyway to go about it, without it being… well…  _ awkward _ , because we’re not fucking fifteen, and I’m not fucking sneaking you out of the house. But still, mum’s going to be a bit weird about it, and Louis’ going to be sat there, trying not to fucking piss himself.”

George snorted, growing quite a fondness for Matty’s little brother. “He reminds me of you, you know?”

“What?” Matty raised their eyebrows. “By being a fucking dickhead?”

“Yeah.” George ran his fingers back through Matty’s hair. “Exactly.”

Matty drew their lips out into a pout, and pressed back into George’s touch. They finished their cigarette, and practiced sitting there, looking flippant: wondering quite what could come of the day.

They didn’t quite get chance to wonder for awfully very long. As within the minute, Matty’s bedroom door was pushed open.

“Matty, you-” Denise stopped dead in her tracks, blinking slowly, as she fixated her gaze on the sight before her.

Matty thought about maybe getting out of George’s lap, but instead just waited for her to finish. It was too late now anyway; she’d already seen them. George just blushed, hiding his face as he put out his cigarette.

“Uhh…” Denise found herself rather lost for what to say, and really, you couldn’t much blame her; this was perhaps the last situation she expected to wake up to that morning. 

“ _ Matty _ .” She eventually found her words, looking once more between Matty and George, before settling her gaze onto them. “Would you perhaps, care to explain?”

Matty gave a shrug, doing all they could to sit there, feigning nonchalance, as they sat there, shitting themself on the inside. “This is George.” They motioned, prodding their index finger into George’s forearm.

“Uh…” George’s cheeks grew to a rather revealing shade of pink. “ _ Hi _ … sorry… about…” George trailed off, quickly coming to realise that he hadn’t the slightest clue as to what he was really apologising for.

Denise let out a sigh, finding that there was a whole world she could scream at the two of them, but found that the sum of what she actually did say, was just nothing at all. “Well, Matty, you’ve got work in an hour, so I think maybe you should consider getting out of bed, don’t you think?”

“Yeah…” Matty frowned, biting their lip. “Probably…”

Denise finally turned instead to George. “You’re welcome to stay for breakfast, by the way. I can imagine there’s quite a bit to talk about.”

And with that, she closed the door behind them.

The two sat in an almost empty silence, listening to the sounds of the house around them. To Matty’s mum making her way back downstairs, and the slight muffled remains of conversation that reached the first floor, followed, eventually by the sound of the front door slamming shut, and Matty’s dad leaving for work.

“Fucking hell.” Matty choked out, finally finding it within themself to get up out of bed, and stumble across their bedroom.

“Well, that was  _ interesting _ .” George buried his head in his hands.

Matty scoffed, pulling their hair back out of their face, and securing it up into a bun. “One way to put it.”

“How much do you think your mum wants to kill me?” George asked, just looking for a vague estimate, as he reached for his phone, texting his own mother to explain that he’d spent the night at a friend’s house, and that he was sorry, and that she shouldn’t bother with filing a missing person’s report.

Matty gave way to a smile. “It’s  _ me _ she wants to kill. She’s going to be fine to you, I can assure you of that. There’s no way you can leave before I go to work.”

George laughed, meeting Matty with an understanding smile. “Course. Absolutely.”

“I think she’s just… I don’t know… not  _ angry _ . Just confused, more than anything else. I mean, she walks in and finds me in bed, sat half-naked with some random guy she’s never seen before in her life, she’s… she’s going to be confused.”

“Sorry…” George blushed: unable to help himself.

“Not your fault.” Matty assured him, pulling on a pair of jeans, as they faced their reflection in the mirror. “I mean, I can’t blame her really. She’s probably gonna sit me down, like, so what’s happening with you and George? And I’m going to have to sit there and say, sorry mum, but I’ve not got a fucking clue.”

George managed a small laugh, getting out of bed, and joining Matty in front of the mirror. “That doesn’t… that… doesn’t  _ worry _ you, does it?” His voice was tentative, not quite daring to meet Matty’s reflection as he fixed his hair.

“No.” Matty’s response was instant. “No, because it doesn’t… it’s not like I don’t know what’s happening. It’s just…” Matty trailed off, pulling a jumper on over the top of yesterday’s shirt - they probably should have changed it, but they didn’t much reckon that the situation called for them taking their shirt off.

“An  _ us _ thing.” Matty declared, meeting George’s reflection in the mirror. “I know what’s going on.  _ We know _ , what’s going on, don’t we?” George gave a nod. “Just not… not really in a way that I can put into words - I haven’t quite got that far yet.”

“Yeah…” George gave a nod. “Tell her what you like, though. I don’t mind. Whatever makes it easier for you to deal with, alright? I don’t want to cause you any more hassle-”

“ _ George _ .” Matty looked up at him like he was being obscene. “You’ve never caused me the slightest bit of hassle in my entire fucking  _ life _ .”

“Shut up.” George insisted: cheeks burning red.

-

At the very least, Louis had already left for school by the time the two of them made their way downstairs. 

Regardless of that, however, Denise still met them with a challenging look the very moment they traipsed into the kitchen. At least wearing more clothes than they had been before, but still managing to look equally as dishevelled. In earnest, they looked awfully post-coeital for two people who had never so much as kissed. And that really wasn’t helping their case.

“Morning…” Matty managed, stretching their arms out up behind them as they reached for a mug, putting the kettle on to boil. “Do you want some tea, George?” 

Matty, however, had grabbed a second mug before he could even open his mouth. George turned pink, and stared at the ground, feeling Denise’s gaze boring right into his skin.

“So…” She let out a sigh, pouring herself a glass of water. “Did you  _ specifically _ wait for everyone else to leave before you came downstairs? Or was it just chance?” Her tone almost seemed comedic: slightly amused more than anything else. That didn’t half catch George by surprise.

“Just dad.” Matty was shocking honest, stirring the two mugs of tea excessively. “I’m not fussed about what Louis has to say.”

“Are you fussed about what I have to say?” She continued to inquire, watching the two carefully as Matty handed George his mug of tea, and they sat down at the kitchen table - again, far too close to each other for the gesture to be accidental.

“Depends what it is.” Matty concluded, shooting a glance across at George, attempting to gauge just how he was taking the situation, before continuing. “I mean, doesn’t much matter, does it? Doesn’t look like I can  _ avoid _ what you have to say.”

“Honestly.” Denise let out a sigh, taking a seat opposite the two. “I don’t know what I have to say.”

“Oh…” Matty met George’s gaze. “I don’t have much to say either, you know- so maybe that’s fine, we’ll just all get on and like-”

“I’m not going to just  _ ignore _ this.” Denise rolled her eyes. “Don’t tell me it’s not my business, I know you’re an adult now, but I’m still your mum, and I’m just a bit… confused… what’s going on?”

“Funny thing is, I’m a bit confused as well.” Matty stretched their arms out across the table. “Don’t know what’s going on. Don’t know what to say.”

“ _ Matty _ -”

“Yeah, whatever, I’m going for a piss.” Matty declared, getting up from the table, shooting George a brief, apologetic glance, before rushing off to try and put their shit together in the safety of the bathroom.

Denise watched them go, before slowly turning her gaze towards George, who seemed to fit the definition of out of place, drumming his fingers anxiously against the handle of his mug.

“George…” She let out a sigh, holding his gaze for just a brief moment. “I’m sorry, this is… a bit… uncomfortable, isn’t it? And… look… I’m just- he’s alright, isn’t he? Like… I don’t need to be worried about him, do I?”

George pulled his lips up into a smile, rendered a little uncomfortable about her use of pronouns regarding Matty, but of course, she was entirely unaware, and it certainly wasn’t George’s place to change that.

“Matty’s fine. Generally fine. You know… ups and downs. We all have them. But… I mean, you ought to be a bit worried, just naturally, you know… but there’s nothing… I think, if anything, Matty’s generally getting better now.”

Denise managed a smile, watching George with a newfound respect in her eyes. “He must trust you an awful lot, for you to be able to say all that with confidence. You know, I don’t think anyone in the world has the slightest clue what’s going on in his head.”

George blushed, hiding his gaze. “Sure, Matty keeps things secret, but not… overly so. Matty just reveals more in… gestures, I think, than in words.” He paused, wondering how best to properly articulate what he had to say. “Like… you know, Matty’s not gonna… sit and tell you, they’re feeling sh-...  _ bad _ , like… you’ve got to… kind of figure that out for yourself.”

“Truthfully.” Denise admitted, voice quieter than before. “I’ve never been very good at reading him. I feel so stupid for it, being his mother and all, but I’ve never quite been sure of what’s going on in his head.”

George smiled. “Matty likes that, though. I think. Keeping it private.” He paused for a moment. “And yeah, that’s worrying and unhelpful, and the worst thing in the world half the time, but then… it’s just… I guess it just means so much more when… Matty sits down and finally tells you what’s going on. Like you know… it’s the truth, and you know it’s important.”

“And he trusts you.” It didn’t take much to assume. “Doesn’t he?” She cracked a smile. “So if you’re telling me I shouldn’t be too worried, then I guess I’m going to have to believe that.”

George gave way to a grin. “I guess you are.”

Denise listened for the slamming of the bathroom door, and changed promptly changed the subject. “Still, I would quite like to know just who you are, how you two know each other, how you ended up… in his bed, this morning.”

“I just…” George flushed a bright red. “It’s not anything…  _ dodgy _ , honestly.” He pulled his gaze away from hers. “Just… I came over last night and we were sat watching a movie and we accidentally fell asleep, you know? I really didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”

“You’re not.” She assured him, finding that despite her first assumptions, she was growing to quite like George. “I just… I know it’s a bit-... and really, I don’t know what I’m talking about, but just you two… this morning… you’re… you’re not his  _ boyfriend _ are you?”

George choked on his tea, eyes growing wide, the word ‘boyfriend’ seeming to carve itself into his chest, forever resonating around his head. “No.” He insisted, cheeks burning red, making a desperate attempt to bury them behind his cup of tea.

Denise laughed, but found herself breathing a little easier at least. It wasn’t that she didn’t like the idea of Matty having a boyfriend, it was just that it wasn’t something she reckoned that she was at all prepared to deal with so early in the morning.

Soon enough, Matty appeared back in the doorway, rummaging through the fridge and pulling out a yoghurt, reaching for a spoon, before sitting themself back down next to George - perhaps even closer than they had been before.

“Talking about me while I was gone, I presume.” Matty didn’t hesitate in jumping to conclusions.

“Only good things.” George met them with a smile, and Matty rolled their eyes, sitting back in their chair, cheeks turning pink.

“Alright. Whatever.” They declared, resting their head into the palm of their hand: doing all they could to hide such an awfully telling blush.

“We’re talking about George, now, actually.” Denise corrected them, turning her attention back to George. “I just asked him about how you two met, you know?”

“Bit of an interesting story, actually…” Matty trailed off. “I mean, well not  _ interesting _ , maybe just convoluted. First saw him because he used to come into the coffeeshop all time, then decided he got sick of me, or whatever-”

“I didn’t.” George interrupted them: desperate to make a point of that.

“Whatever.” Matty grinned, folding their arms across their chest. “So… then I kind of missed him a bit, he came in all the time, you know? Like everyday, was a bit weird when he just stopped. Idiot, got his life together, though, didn’t he? And stopped procrastinating so much, but anyway. Like a few weeks later or something, we meet again at a party, and it’s like… oh wow it’s you. And it’s like… sort of like immediately… you know when you like  _ click _ with someone, it was like that. And then there was this whole other mess with me being a dickhead, but let’s not get into that, because everything’s alright now.”

“Everything’s alright now.” Denise repeated, unable to stop herself from fixating the way Matty’s smile wouldn’t leave their face when they spoke about George.

“Yeah.” Matty gave way to a smile. “Think so, anyway.”

George caught sight of the clock on the wall, nudging Matty, and gesturing towards it. “We should probably get going, shouldn’t we?”

“Yeah.” Matty agreed, getting to their feet, despite the fact that they really didn’t have to leave for work for another fifteen minutes. And George knew it too.

“Nice to meet you.” George met Denise with a smile, before following Matty out of the kitchen and towards the front door.

She simply returned the smile, raising her eyebrows as she caught sight of the time: knowing all too well that Matty certainly didn’t have to be in this early, but still, she reckoned she’d questioned too much for that morning as it was. She was already stuck with quite the headache.

Despite the early start, Matty was late for work in the end, having spent far too long, walking around with George, talking shit, and smoking until they both had really run out of cigarettes.

And as Matty left for work, and George was about to turn away, he got this awful feeling in the pit of his stomach, like he was ought to kiss them. Like he more than ought to, like he wanted to. Like that, despite the stigma he’d built it up with, they might just be a  _ them _ thing too.

But they’d had made too much of a mess for that morning as it was, and George simply departed with a smile, Matty’s lips cursing his mind instead as he watched them go.

George was late for college, too. Ross didn’t half glare at him as he stumbled into class, twenty minutes late, looking rather dishevelled and out of breath, and still, unreasonably pleased with himself.

Ross even thought about asking, regarding just what had happened the night before, when George sat himself down next to him. But instead came to conclude that maybe he just didn’t want to know.

-

It was Adam who eventually caved: growing tired of George’s quiet and almost elusive demeanour throughout the course of the day.

They were sat outside, as much hidden from general view as they could manage; John had been working on some last minute homework, and George had sat there smoking, having gotten to his third cigarette by the time Adam snapped.

“George, mate, what the fuck is going on?” He put it rather bluntly: deeming the situation not to be much for eloquence.

Ross and John shared a look - all wide eyed and dreading; it didn’t take much to figure that Ross had relayed what little information he knew to John. George wasn’t sure whether that bothered him or not.

“What do you mean?” He bit his lip, voice muffled and generally unenthused, as he kicked the dirt with the toe of his boots.

“With you.” Adam raised his voice, growing immediately rather impatient. “With you turning up late, and acting all weird, and quiet, and smoking half a pack of cigarettes in ten minutes-”

“Three cigs isn’t half a pack.” George’s tone was stern, choosing that to focus on, of all things.

“ _ Still _ …” Adam trailed off, glancing over to John and Ross for help. “It’s too much, for like… ten minutes… like-”

“What happened last night?” Ross interjected, his tone bold, and almost daring, yet meeting George with a stare that was nothing but stern and sincere.

George shrugged, cheeks heating up as he turned away from the three of them.

“Wait… what…?” Adam trailed off, turning to Ross and immediately coming to recognise the knowing look held in his eyes. “Alright, so what is it that’s gone down that you’ve all neglected to tell me about?”

“Up to George to tell you.” Ross supplied with a shrug, hoping that might encourage George to just be slightly more inclined to offer up perhaps any sort of explanation.

“Yeah, didn’t stop you from telling John about it.” George couldn’t help the remark: slipping his lips before common sense could hold him back. John flushed red.

“I didn’t…  _ tell _ him the whole story, I just, mentioned that I was a bit worried about you, because you told me something really important and then you said you’d text me later, and you never did and-”

“I didn’t text you because I forgot.” George told him rather plainly. “Not because I got kidnapped and held hostage or anything. I’ve not been through severe emotional torture and abuse over the past twenty four hours, you can all calm down, alright?”

“Never… really assumed you had.” Adam commented, unsure as to quite whether George might want to hit him for smiling or not.

“Look, George, I don’t know what it’s about, I just know… you’ve got… uhh… the words Ross used were ‘internal conflict’...” 

George burst into a fit of laughter. “Fucking hell.”

“I didn’t know what else-” Ross did try to defend himself.

“Anyway.” John interjected, continuing to explain. “And he told me you’d gone off to deal with that, and that you’d text him to tell him how it went. But then when you hadn’t texted him, we just thought maybe you’d gotten really upset or something, and it kind of looks like-”

“I’m not upset.” George met the three boys with a smile. “I’m actually not. I’m just a bit… a bit… I don’t know… I feel like a lot’s happened, and I’m still dealing with that.”

“Maybe you should talk about it.” Adam did  _ try _ not to sound overly condescending - it just didn’t quite work.

“Maybe…” George let out a sigh, running a hand back through his hair. “Just don’t be…  _ weird _ , about it?”

“What do you mean?” Adam met him with a confused kind of half smile. “What’s weird?”

“We won’t be weird about it.” John let out a sigh, shooting Adam a look. “Whatever it is, alright?”

“Just don’t say  _ anything _ like, don’t give me your stupid fucking opinions because I don’t… I don’t want to  _ deal _ with what you might think, because it’s not that I don’t care, I’ll listen to you berate me eventually, just not right now.” George drew a sigh, and met Ross’ gaze.

“Just don’t be a dickhead.” Ross added, shooting a glance across at Adam, who made a point of looking particularly offended.

“Alright so…” George took a drag of his cigarette, fixating his gaze down at the ground. “ _ Matty _ . It’s about Matty. Because of course it is.”

The three couldn’t help but laugh. George even managed a chuckle at his own expense.

“So, I think I am a bit in love with them, you know?” George caught his breath, not daring, for the life of him, to catch a single one of his friends’ gazes. “I was talking to Ross yesterday, about like… my little mess of feelings for them, and like… sexuality crisis, and what not. Because it’s not really a crisis, because I don’t feel like personally attacked by Matty’s dick or anything, I just-”

“Jesus Christ…” Adam couldn’t help himself, eyes growing wide.

George rolled his eyes, meeting his gaze just for a brief moment. “I went over to Matty’s, and… they were hungover, like really hungover, like…  _ ugly hungover _ , wrapped up in a blanket, looking paler than a fucking ghost, like… but like they’re still  _ Matty,  _ and I made them tea and we sat and talked for a bit, and I… still thought they were pretty like that, which was sort of weird, like weirdly sappy, and… it was nice, you know?”

“And how exactly did that make you late today?” John couldn’t help but inquire.

“I’m really not done yet.” George let out a sigh, burying his thoughts in a cloud of smoke. “We went up to their room because their brother came home, and it was probably the most awkward conversation of my life, because they’d obviously told him something about me, and like… he was just staring at me, like he wanted to just yell it at me. And that’s… sort of uncomfortable, you know?”

George gave way to a sigh. “But it wasn’t something bad, Matty promised me. They could be a fucking liar, but I believe them. And then, we sat and smoked for a bit, and I finally asked them about… sexuality… and… they kind of didn’t want to talk about it, but they did, and I really don’t think I deserved that, because they told me this mess of a story about them at sixteen, and how they figured things out, and… Matty just doesn’t offer up shit like that. It’s just… that meant a lot to me.”

“They probably like you too, you know?” John offered, a little nervous as to how George might react to such a statement.

“Yeah.” George smiled, cheeks turning red. “They do. It’s kind of obvious - we both kind of fancy each other, but like… it’s… nothing’s  _ happened _ , because it’s not the right moment-”

“Because you’re scared?” Adam raised his eyebrows: leaping to conclusions.

“No, because we’re not ready.” George snapped, shaking his head. “They offered to kiss me, you know? When we were talking about sexuality. Like, you can just kiss me and figure that out. But I already knew I liked the idea of kissing them - that wasn’t the  _ issue _ .”

“I know you told me not to say anything, but you’re an idiot.” Adam let out a sigh, and neither Ross nor John could help but laugh.

George gave a shrug; he could see, in a way, that Adam had a point. “And then we, fell asleep together, and… then… in the morning, I met their mum, and easily that was the second most awkward conversation, because she was nice, but… we were sat in bed together, half-naked, Matty was sat in my lap - it wasn’t the best of things to walk in on-”

“ _ Fucking hell _ .” Ross’ eyes grew wide. “Exactly how gay can you get without actually being gay?”

George managed a smile. “Yeah, but Matty’s not a boy, alright, so…” They trailed off. “But their mum sat me down, and basically just asked me, if I was their boyfriend… and that was a bit… harrowing, for like eight in the morning.”

“What?” John raised his eyebrows. “Because, you weren’t sure if you’re Matty’s boyfriend or not?”

“No, shut up…” George flushed red. “We’re not together, I’m not their boyfriend, we’ve never even kissed, we’re just… things are taking their time, I think… I think maybe we’re at a stage where something’s got to happen, just eventually, when we’re both comfortable with it, when it feels right.”

“You are aware your life isn’t a fucking Disney movie?” Adam shot George a look. “Not be harsh, but like… it’s just a  _ kiss _ … I think if you convince yourself it’s going to be the most magical thing you’ve ever experienced, that’s going to fuck with your head.”

“I’m not talking about shit like that.” George rolled his eyes, unable to stop his cheeks from burning red. “I just mean, when I’m comfortable with my sexuality, and when Matty’s certain that they want to.”

“I think Matty wants to. That’s beyond obvious-”

“No, like…” George shook his head. “Matty, sort of, you know kissed every boy they’ve made eye contact with for the past two years. They want to make sure that they want to kiss me, because they want to kiss  _ me _ , and not just for the sake of it.”

“Not to be…” Ross began, gesturing wildly with his hands. “Intrusive, or anything, but… this sounds a bit overly complicated, don’t you think?”

“You two obviously love each other, just let it  _ happen _ -”

“I am, it’s just not…” George gave way to a sigh. “We’re not quite there yet, alright? I think if I just went and kissed them right now, that’d be forcing it.”

“Because you’re  _ still _ not sure whether you like dick or not?” Adam shook his head in disbelief. “ _ Honestly _ , George, come on-”

“No, I think I’ve got that sorted in theory, you know?” George bit his lip. “Like in my head. I guess it could change when I actually put it into practice, but I think, I’m just generally not actually that fussed about what someone’s got between their legs.”

He let out a sigh, finishing his third cigarette. “You know… bisexual, or something like that?”

And what was a beautiful, emotional, and maybe even heart wrenching moment was smashed into pieces when Ross let out a cheer.

“Fucking yes. There we go. George is gayer than Adam, fucking suck on that, Waughy-”

“ _ What _ ?” Adam’s eyes grew wide, blinking expectantly between the two of them.

“Oh… yeah…” George bit his lip as it all came back to him. “They had a bet, over which one of us… would turn out the least straight or something.”

“And you went for  _ me _ ?” Adam stared at John, eyes wide with disbelief. “When he’s been like moments from sucking off Matty for the past few months, and-”

“You know what?” John folded his arms across his chest. “I don’t think this counts. I think… I think George has to  _ prove _ it. George has to kiss Matty for it to be a win.”

Ross stopped for a moment and grinned. “Yeah. I think so too.”

And George sat there, rather dumbfounded, spending a good minute wondering whether this had actually ever been a real bet at all, or just an oddly formulated scheme to get him to admit his feelings for Matty.

But whichever it was, George just wasn’t sure he cared anymore.

-

Matty arrived home to a house that seemed to be bursting with life and noise. It just failed to make them feel welcome in any real way or form, as the noise wasn’t that of warming, bubbly conversation, but that of clear argument: piercing into Matty’s skin the very moment they made it past the front door.

Against all better judgement, they followed the source of the noise into the living room, looking between their parents with wide eyes, sharing a fleeting glance with Louis, before catching the clock on the wall.

“What are you doing home?” Matty fixated their gaze on the time - it was barely half past five, and yet, both of their parents were home, despite perhaps all common sense and rationale.

And, still, there was certainly no missing the way the silence seemed to ring out between them - the room having faded away into silence the very moment Matty had walked in through the door. They just didn’t quite want to think about what that could possibly mean, at least, not yet.

“It’s not like we don’t live here too.” Matty held their father’s gaze: caring not for the almost sarcastic tone to his voice, attempting to brush this all off like it was nothing, like he could just kid Matty that they hadn’t clearly been talking about them up until they walked right in. That really wasn’t the case.

Giving up on them, Matty turned their attention across to Louis, who was stood rather awkwardly against the wall, as if trying to avoid their conversation more than anything else. Matty eyed him curiously, taking a moment to let their thoughts mull over in their mind, before properly addressing him.

“So what  _ is _ going on?” Matty knew that their best chance, in regards to answers, was Louis.

“They’re…” Louis trailed off, catching an almost challenging look from his parents, before deciding that he didn’t actually care what they had to say, and instead, faced Matty head on. “Talking about you, I think, you’ve guessed that, but, about you and  _ George _ .”

“Oh…” Matty’s mouth went dry, pulling their gaze past their father, and instead catching their mother’s gaze. “Kind of you to fucking share my business with the entire world, isn’t it?”

“ _ Matty _ -” She let out a sigh, burying her head in her hands.

“Is that what this is?” Matty burst into a laugh, as abhorred by the situation as they were amused. “You’ve called the whole fucking family home because you have to immediately discuss the slight probability that you think I might have shagged a bloke?”

Matty’s lack of discretion didn’t half send the room into a mess of red faces and distant eyes. They found it funny, more than anything else.

“Oh  _ fuck off _ .” Matty rolled their eyes, turning away from both of their parents, and offering Louis a smile instead.

“I told you.” Louis added, glancing past Matty, speaking to their parents. “That they weren’t together. I  _ told _ you.”

Matty gave way to a smirk, crossing the room to join Louis, rummaging through their pockets for their phone, as they placed their back against the wall.

“Still, I-...” Denise gave way to a sigh. “It’s been on my mind, you know? Like, uncontrollably, and I needed to talk to your father about it, and Louis, I know you-”

“Mum, I…” Louis shook his head in disbelief. “It’s just none of your business. I know, you would  _ like  _ to know, but Matty’s an adult, believe it or not, so like…”

Matty’s lips curled up into a smile. “He’s right.” They met their parents dead in the eyes. “It’s not your business who I’m sleeping with. And for the record, I’m not sleeping with George. Never have.”

“Right…” The room fell into a sigh. Matty could tell that neither of their parents seemed all that convinced.

“I just find it almost… fucking… offensive, that you’re so  _ worked up _ about it, like… if George was a girl, would you really be this bothered? No, no you fucking wouldn’t. And that’s just… just… that’s kind of homophobic, really… isn’t it?” 

Matty’s voice was slow and tentative, and their words were over punctuated with profanities - perhaps more than they’d perhaps care to let slip in front of Louis, but the situation certainly seemed to call for it.

“No, that’s not…” Denise met Matty with an almost pleading look in her eyes. “Matty, that’s really not what I’m getting at here. I’m just concerned. We’ve established that George isn’t your boyfriend, and he seems nice. It’s just… I’m struggling to work out why you were sat in his lap, half naked this morning. Not to throw it out there, but it’s been on my mind.”

Louis’ eyes grew wide. “Oh… wow…”

Matty shot him a look. “Still, none of your fucking business.”

“Matty, son, we care, because we’re confused, we just-”

“You wouldn’t be fucking confused if he was a girl. You’d be absolutely fine with the whole thing if George had been a girl. And that’s really pissing me off, you know? Because that’s literally… you’re treating the situation differently because he’s a guy, that’s literally homophobic-”

“Matty,  _ please _ …” Denise offered them a smile. “That’s not the issue, we know you’re not gay, we’re just… it’s the idea of you keeping  _ secrets- _ ”

“Oh my fucking  _ god _ .” Matty buried their head in their hands, turning to Louis for a brief moment, and shooting him an entirely hopeless look.

“Just leave it alone, alright?” Louis lowered his voice slightly, looking between his parents with far more courage than he reckoned he did actually possess.

“Matty-”

“Leave it alone.” Louis’ tone grew sterner, despite perhaps all common sense. “Can’t you see you’re literally  _ upsetting _ Matty?”

“Fuck’s sake.” Matty let out a sigh, turning back to face their parents, something clicking inside of them. This was a moment if there ever was one. A chance to make a statement. Something.

It was horrific, but it was clear. It wasn’t going to sink in any other way. And Matty just looked at their parents, and couldn’t help but wonder as to just what they might say.

And as the room began to still, Matty took a deep breath and just let it all escape them.

“Right, so, I’m not  _ gay _ , but I’m attracted to men.” 

Their words seemed so incredibly blunt that they seemed to slice holes in the air around them. Matty didn’t dare to meet their parents’ gazes, and instead, their eyes clung desperately to Louis for support.

“So you  _ are _ with George, and you’ve  _ lied _ to us yet again-”

“Mum…” Matty’s breath was shaky, and their words were twice as unstable. After a moment or two, they found it within themself to bring their gaze up to meet their mother’s.

“Just…” They shook their head. “Just, you’re being stupid. Like, I hate to put it like that, but you’re being stupid. I’ve not slept with George. I’ve not kissed George. I’ve not done anything with George, because funnily enough, George is straight. And for another point, George is absolutely not the only man in the world.”

Neither of their parents quite knew what to say to that.

“So, there you go. I’ve had boyfriends, I guess. Just not George. Me and George are friends.” Matty already regretted it, despite the comforting look Louis met them with. Despite everything, they knew they’d ultimately fucked up.

“ _ Boyfriends _ .” Their dad repeated.

“Boyfriends.” Matty let the word slip their lips with malice, firing it straight at their father. “I’ve had boyfriends. I’ve had girlfriends. Not at the same time, though, I have morals as well.”

“So you’re…  _ bisexual _ ?” Denise tested the word out on her lips, almost like she didn’t entirely trust it.

“No.” Matty shook their head, their whole chest beginning to ache. “Just attracted to men. I had girlfriends in the past, but you know, I’ve had revelations about sexuality-”

“So you  _ are _ gay?” It came to the point where Matty was almost ready to laugh at it.

“No.” Matty let out a sigh. “I’m not gay. I’m just attracted to men.”

“ _ Why _ ?” Their mother’s voice grew increasingly insistent. “How does that not just make you  _ gay _ ? And look, Matty, that isn’t an- that’s not a problem, that’s fine- just… why are you-”

“I’m not a boy. That’s why I’m not gay.” The words had left Matty’s lips before they could really think about them. “Fuck, alright, just bare with me. Not a girl. Tried being a girl. It was nice. Didn’t entirely get along with it, though. But I was somebody’s girlfriend once, funny to think that, isn’t it?”

No one else seemed to find it particularly funny. Matty was almost disappointed.

“Anyway, so. Not a boy, not a girl. I know…  _ confusing _ . That’s been the summary of my life for the past few months, basically I’m confused, what the fuck is gender, what the fuck is sexuality,  _ but _ … I’ve got it figured out now. I’m just in the middle, you know?  _ Genderqueer _ , if you want to put a particular name on it. And I don’t care if you don’t care, and I don’t care if you don’t like it, because I’m an adult, it’s my business, and you can just fucking  _ deal _ with it.”

And as Matty made their way for the door, desperately needing to get out of that room, to get out of the house, to get out of their head, Denise got to her feet and stopped them.

“Fucking hell.” She pulled Matty into her chest.“Fucking  _ hell _ , Matty.”

“Yeah.” Matty let out a sigh, pulling away from her, and shooting his dad a questioning look. “Quite a mess, really.”

“Could say that.” Their dad gave way to a smile, pulling Matty into a quick hug, before leaving Matty stood there, rather awkwardly between the two of them.

“We love you, you know that?” Denise continued, meeting Matty with a smile. “You just need to  _ talk _ about these things. We just don’t like being confused, we don’t like being in the dark. It’s fine if you’ve got a boyfriend, it’s fine if you’re… genderqueer, it’s  _ fine _ . It’s your business, but we love you, and we want to know.”

“That’s been this, all these months.” Matty let out a sigh, turning their head to the floor. “Why I’ve been distant, all of this. Gender, especially. And then I spent a lot of time at my boyfriend’s place. We’ve broke up now. He was a bit of a dickhead. Quite a lot of a dickhead, but… yeah… I’m sorry.”

And for the first moment in far too long, their house began to feel so much more like a home. 

“Love you too.” 

Matty gave way to a smile, cheeks burning red.

-

“ _ Boyfriends _ .”

The illusion of everything Matty had every felt secure in shattered promptly that Friday evening when Matty made it in from work. Their mum had taken Louis out shopping, and they had known their dad would have been home, they weren’t quite so keen to face him immediately.

Matty pulled their hair back into a bun, cheeks burning red under his speculative gaze: cast firm across the living room.

“Yeah…” Matty let out a sigh, words muffled against the back of their hand.

“Tell me about them.” Tim prompted, as if it were nothing at all, leaving back against the sofa, and catching Matty with a concerned glance.

“ _ Why _ ?” Matty shrugged it off, turning away from him.

“Because I’ve heard the world about every girl you’ve ever fancied, but nothing about a single boy.” He continued perhaps far too nonchalantly, and for a moment, Matty almost believed that there was something genuinely innocent in the conversation.

“I don’t exactly feel that  _ comfortable _ …” Matty trailed off, avoiding their father’s gaze. 

“Why? Because they’re  _ boys _ ?” He let out a snort. “Weren’t you just banging on about how we all shouldn’t treat it any differently whether they’re girls or boys? You’d tell me about some girl you kissed at a party, but not some boy, hey?”

“If I don’t  _ want _ to tell you then, that’s… not your business, you know?” Matty stepped away from their father, eyeing him carefully from across the room.

“Whatever, then, just  _ asking _ .” He gave a sigh: too pushing, sounding almost offended.

Matty drew their features out into a frown. They glanced to the floor, pulling at the hem of their shirt. “I’m going out.”

“You’re-”

“Going out.” Matty didn’t let him finish, turning away back towards the front door. “Yeah.”

“You just got in-”

“Yeah, well I’m going somewhere else now, and that’s…  _ none of your business _ . Just like, who I date, or what boys I’ve kissed are all  _ none of your business _ . So just fuck off, alright?”

Matty slammed the door behind them, not giving their father a chance to respond, before they stormed off out into the street, lighting up a cigarette, and instantly typing out a message to George - almost like a reflex, engrained into their brain.

_ ‘I need to see you’ _

Matty waited little more than a minute for a response.

_ ‘Why? What’s happened?’ _

Matty chewed their lip, debating over how much detail they should go into over text.

_ ‘Everything’s fucked’ _

Their usual explanation seemed to work.

_ ‘What’s everything?’ _

Really, Matty could see how they were supposed to answer that.

_ ‘I’m coming over’ _

They avoided the question entirely.

_ ‘I’m out but I’ll come meet you if you want’ _

Matty’s heart sank in their chest.

_ ‘Out with your mates?’ _

George’s response was instant -  _ ‘Yeah’ _

_ ‘I won’t bother you then’ _

Matty drew their worries back into their chest amidst clouds of smoke.

_ ‘You’re not bothering me. If you’re upset then we should talk’ _

Matty let out a sigh, regret creeping through their veins.

_ ‘I’m not upset. I’m just pissed off’ _

Matty didn’t give George time to respond, before typing out a second message.

_ ‘I’ll go see Gemma instead’ _

They buried their phone back into their pocket before George could even response. 

Matty didn’t want to deal with that. Matty didn’t want to deal with him, and the over-concerned sympathy that they would never deserve. They wanted to convince themself that a few harsh words from their father couldn’t define their whole world, and despite his good intent, George just wasn’t helping with that.

Instead, Matty told themself they would be fine, put their cigarette to their lips, and carried on towards Gemma’s.

-

Her lipstick was smudged.

It was the first thing Matty noticed when she’d opened the door: stood there, under the dim glow of the table lamp, with dark red lipstick fading and smudged across her lips.

Matty cracked a smile.

“What?” Gemma’s eyes grew wide, cheeks turning an equally abrasive shade of red.

Matty gave a shrug, not uttering a word, and simply pushed past her and into the living room.

The boy sat on the sofa was shirtless, and muscular, with dark hair, and long limbs, and the kind of dark brown eyes that you could drown in. He stared at Matty like they were entirely insane. Matty offered back a smile. As they had, of course, seen this all before.

It perhaps wasn’t the best time for it, but it wasn’t like they could expect Gemma to organise her dating life around their own family mishaps and persistent tendencies to throw everything into shit. At the very least, it provided Matty with some idle amusement: something for their mind to focus on as they picked the half empty wine glass up from the coffee table and helped themself to a sip.

The boy continued to stare. Matty hadn’t expected anything less.

Gemma reappeared just a few moments later, with fixed lipstick, and hair tied back away from her face. Matty shot her a smirk, tugging her gaze across the room to the boy, who was still just as shirtless, and still just as confused.

“Uhm…” Funnily enough, he was the first one to speak, glancing between Gemma and Matty, gesturing awkwardly with an extended finger.

“Yeah.” Gemma threw herself into a sigh. “This is my boyfriend. His name’s Oliver.” She shot Matty a stern look - one it didn’t take Matty long to figure served to act as a warning not to sleep with him. They couldn’t help but smirk at the prospect.

“Hi…” Oliver gave way to a sigh, still shirtless, and suddenly now so much more aware of it.

“This is  _ Matty _ .” Gemma rolled her eyes in their direction, seeing as Matty was somehow incapable of introducing themself. “My  _ friend _ .”

Oliver raised his eyebrows. Matty snorted; they wondered if Gemma’s boyfriends ever stop getting the wrong idea.

“I slept with her last boyfriend.” Matty was the perfect picture of nonchalance, taking a leisurely sip from Gemma’s glass of wine as they spoke. “Watch out.” They met Oliver’s gaze with a smirk.

“...Oh…” His eyes grew so wide that Matty thought they might fall out. Somehow, Gemma didn’t seem to find it anywhere near as amusing as they did.

“Is that a joke…?” Oliver trailed off, noticing the way Matty struggled to contain their laughter.

Gemma rolled her eyes, reaching for her now empty wine glass, and taking it from them. “No, they did.” She explained, perhaps all too casually, as she set the glass back down onto the table.

“I only slept with him because he was a dickhead, though.” Matty muttered, running a hand back through their hair. “Only ever sleep with dickheads, me. So be nice to her and you’re safe.”

They gave way to a sigh, burying their head in their hands, as they made their way over to the window, dragging their index finger across the cold glass, as if to outline the dark, unforgiving evening outside. As if to make a mockery of it even - imagine that. But that had always been Matty’s deal: making mountains out of molehills, and molehills out of mountains.

Gemma’s gaze didn’t leave Matty. She drew a slow breath, and came to accept this as the very moment that she knew that something was off. She folded her arms across her chest, shot Oliver an apologetic glance, and followed them across the room.

“What’s wrong?” Gemma reached her arm around their shoulders. When Matty gave no response, she followed their gaze out into the night sky, out into the world, that somehow seemed so distant, and out of reach from where they stood inside.

“I hate everything.” Matty declared, drawing their gaze to the ground. “Because nothing’s ever fucking _good_ _enough_ , is it? I came out to my parents, and they didn’t kill me. It was nice, you know? They said they loved me, and you know I was over the moon.”

Gemma gave a nod: unsure if she’d quite ever forget that phone call from the other night.

“But it’s just… I thought everything was getting better, but it’s not. It’s still shit. Everything’s still fucked. Everything’s still shit.” Matty shook their head and let out a sigh. “My dad’s being weird about it. They’re being nice, but they’re always being weird about it, and they always call me ‘he’ still. Not to make a point, just because they forget, and I… I just feel awkward reminding them. It’s a fucking bother. I’m a fucking  _ bother _ . That’s what it feels like.”

“You’re not.” Gemma pressed her fingertips into the top of their spine, hoping her words might retain the same effect.

“I just… everything’s fucked, everything’s always going to be fucked, you know? What’s the fucking point? And everyone’s got… I’m just a  _ bother _ . Everyone’s got their friends and their boyfriends, no one’s got time for me and my stupid fucking gender in their lives-”

“ _ Matty- _ ”

Matty tore away from her grip, shaking their head at her. “And it’s  _ fine _ . Because all I wanted was to get pissed anyway, to fucking forget all this shit. But I’ll go and buy myself some fucking vodka and pass out in a park somewhere-”

“ _ Matty _ .” Gemma raised her voice this time, curling her fingers around their arm, stopping them from leaving.

“She’s right. Not a good idea that.” Oliver didn’t want to intrude, but from what he’d picked up of the conversation, Matty needed some convincing.

Matty stared him down with disgust; he’d put his shirt on, at the very,  _ very _ least.

“Oh fuck off. Look, you can get back to fucking on the sofa, I don’t care, sorry for ruining your evening with my fucking problems-”

“We  _ weren’t _ fucking on the sofa.” Gemma insisted, holding Matty’s gaze. “You’re not going off on your own, you’re in a state.”

“I need to get pissed.” Matty raised their voice, meeting them both in the eye. “That’s all I need. Bit of vodka, and then,  _ easy _ , everything’s fucking dealt with-”

Gemma doubted the truth to that. “Matty…” She met them with pleading eyes.

“Hey…” Oliver trailed off, tearing his gaze back and forth between the two of them. “Aren’t your friends at a party tonight? We should just go along to that. Matty can drunk, and you can keep an eye on him, and-”

“Keep an eye on me?” Matty’s eyes widened in disbelief. “I’m not a twelve year old.”

“You behave like one.” Gemma rolled their eyes. 

She considered Oliver’s proposal for a moment or two, before deciding that it just didn’t seem like there was a better option available to her. “Fuck it, let’s go then.”

“Alright, you know me - love a good party.” Matty pulled on a grin and wore it with conviction.

Gemma shook her head - she didn’t see through it. “You love the booze.”

“And the boys. Pretty boys with their shirts off.” They shot a glance back towards Oliver. “Ones without girlfriends though. And yeah. The booze.”

Gemma shook her head, forcing her lips closed as the word ‘George’ began to rot away at the back of her throat.

-

George wasn’t sure if Matty had permanently ruined parties for him, or whether all of his friends were just the worst people in the world. Whichever it was, the party fucking sucked.

As much as George liked to say he was a people person, there was no place he’d hate more to be than wedged between two girls he’d sort of vaguely known from school - devastatingly sober, and devastatingly single.

Ross and John had slipped off together within the first ten minutes. And as much as George would have protested, and told them they were being dickheads, he wasn’t sure he could stomach actually having to watch John suck Ross’ tongue out of his mouth. 

He hated them both.

He hated Adam as well. Because he’d trusted Adam. He always hung around Adam at parties, when Ross and John had gotten wasted enough to be practically in each other’s pants in a public place - George found that the two had bonded an awful lot over their two best friends borderline obscene relationship. 

Yet somehow, within the space of the past few days, Adam had gotten himself a girlfriend. She was pretty, with dark hair and an almost permanent smile, and George would have adored her in any other situation. 

But now he was the single friend, and the sober friend. And he wanted it to be his last party all over again. He wanted to be off his fucking face, with Matty curled up in his lap, and every petty argument, and every mess they could have made. 

With his back against the living room wall, and the music droning on inside his mind, George wanted that all over again.

He didn’t care about the girls, and their fascinatingly tedious stories, and the whole world they seemed to offer up on their shoulders. Because George couldn’t bring himself to care about anything else in the world when he knew Matty was upset, especially considering that it had almost been an hour since he’d last texted him back.

Eventually, George made a half-hearted excuse about needing the toilet, and struggled through the crowds of people, wondering whether just to give up and leave the party entirely. To just go home and sulk, or to try his best to track Matty down and make sure he was alright.

He did try to convince himself that Matty was alright. He’d gone over to Gemma’s after all, and George trusted that she’d dealt with him, and that it shouldn’t be any of his concern anymore. He just couldn’t escape the feeling that any problem of Matty’s was a problem of his too.

He dared to wonder if maybe Matty did actually need his help, despite all the odds, that somehow, Gemma just hadn’t managed to suffice, and that he was, in fact, this hero figure - the person that might save him from every slight minor inconvenience.

George told himself to stop being stupid, reminded himself that Matty was a person, not a fucking word document, and certainly didn’t need saving. And tried to think about just  _ anything _ else as he found his way to the bathroom, and had that piss he’d lied to those girls about needing.

-

“I was right.” Matty’s words left their lips at perhaps a rate of a thousand a minute, an empty wine glass dangling precariously from their fingertips. “You  _ know _ I was.”

They shot a grin up a Gemma: hazy and content. She offered a smile back, glancing back through the crowd: looking for Amber and Marika, for anyone who might keep an eye on them.

“Always right.” Matty brought their wine glass back up to their lips, only to realise that there, of course, was in fact, nothing in it. “Fucking genius, me.” They drummed their fingertips against the glass, seemingly rather amused by their own conclusion and hazy state of mind.

Gemma looked back across at her boyfriend, almost losing him in the crowds, as Matty had spread themself out across the sofa, seeming to think that they just weren’t far off the top of the world. As much as they did seem at total ease, Gemma knew much better than to leave them like that. And it was as she’d almost given up, accepting that she’d have to stay and babysit them for the rest of the night, she caught Amber’s gaze from across the room, and darted off after her.

Matty wasn’t stupid. They just did stupid things.

Matty wasn’t stupid enough not to realise that Gemma wanted to keep an eye on them the whole night, to treat them like a child, like they couldn’t last a moment without helping themself. And as much truth as there might have been to that. Matty was just stupid enough to disregard it all, and get to their feet at the first moment, losing both themself and Gemma in the crowd.

They had little problem with inserting themself into conversations, into holding the gaze of strangers, and feeling the weight of the world on their back, comprised of wanting gazes. It made them younger. Like there was nothing on their mind, like it was just endless parties and endless bullshit, and only words that could hurt them.

But then, everything stopped.

“Hey…  _ sweetheart _ .” 

Matty had caught a thousand ‘sweethearts’ in their life; they’d built themself up on a mountain of catcalls, and they stood as the ruler upon it. Still, this was something different.

There was a  certain barb to the low, almost husky tone. Like there wasn’t even an ounce of daring present behind the facade of confidence. Like the confidence wasn’t even a facade. Like the speaker knew exactly what he was doing, like this was a game, and a game he always played so very well.

With an outstretched hand over their head - an arm pushing them up to the wall, Matty gave way to a shaky breath, and turned, meeting the speaker’s eyes: dark in the evening night, but burning across their mind still.

Matty’s stomach jerked inside their chest, and their whole world fell into a somersault.

“Didn’t think I’d see you here.” He continued, moving closer: taking Matty’s silence as an invitation, exchanging lazy smiles, like they were young all over again. Like the air was warm, and the night young, and the world felt like it was comprised of more than blood, lies, and shit.

“Yeah.” Matty gave way to a sigh, pushing their hair back out of their face, and meeting his gaze properly - if he deserved  _ anything _ , it had to be that at the very least.

“Didn’t know if I’d  _ ever _ see you again.” He lowered his voice slightly, pressing Matty further against the wall.

“Well, maybe you shouldn’t have fucked off and left me without an explanation if you thought that was going to be a problem.” Matty raised their eyebrows, finding the courage to push him away.

“ _ Matty _ .” His eyes grew wide, taking them in as if they wanted just to swallow them whole - to crush Matty into pieces and take what remained of them with him. 

“ _ James _ .” Matty’s tone was harsh, disinterested, and plainly indicative of the fact that things wouldn’t go down as they had before. James didn’t seem keen to listen.

James looked down at them like they were still sixteen - the perfect picture of naivety with soft pink lips, and a sense of perpetual anxiety set into their eyes.

Matty bit back with fingers into James’ chest, pushing him firmly away, leaving him to contemplate the Matty that stood before him - chipped black nail polish, fading red lipstick, and a sense of perpetual vindication set deep into their eyes.

“One last time-”

Matty didn’t even let him finish. “Yeah, one last time for you to fucking shut up before I slam your fucking head against the wall.”

James snorted. “Like you’re going to do that.”

Matty realised then that they hated every boy they’d ever slept with; they’d let them all in, and each and every one of them knew them all too well. When Matty offered up their body, their heart and soul did always drift off with it.

And Matty had made a lot of mistakes, but never had one stared back at them with such disgust, with such entitlement, at six foot two, with dark eyes, and the impression that the world rested purely on their shoulders.

Matty searched for words, for anything to say at all, but their lips grew dry, as their mouth remained empty. Nothing to say for themself at all, just the bitterest silence, cutting through the loudest room.

They stared up at James, all wide eyes and desperation. But, he also didn’t quite get the chance to even think of something to say.

“Fuck off, mate.” Fingers gripped around James’ shoulder, pulling his arm back away from where it had bracketed Matty.

“Fuck off?” James shot an incredulous glance over his shoulder. “You can  _ fuck off _ . Me and Matty are alright - we go  _ back _ .”

Matty pushed away from James, heart pounding frantically in their chest. It was as they stumbled to escape the both of them, that they stopped dead in their tracks.

“Way back.” James added, as if for emphasis. “Don’t we?” He turned to Matty, expectantly.

But Matty wasn’t listening. Matty was already gone. Matty’s lip had flown out into a desperate smile.

Matty locked eyes with George.

“I don’t give a fuck - Matty’s clearly not comfortable, so you can  _ fuck off _ .”

Matty had never seen George like this: properly angry, with the whole world seeming to burn behind his eyes. He shot James a glare, taking advantage of his height, like Matty had never seen before, and pushing James back into the wall, with one forceful hand on his shoulder.

“I don’t know who the fuck you think you are.” James gave way to a laugh, looking up at George like he didn’t scare him at all, like he was nothing more than a speck of dust on the back of his hand. “He was my  _ boyfriend _ . We were together, years back, we’re  _ fine _ .”

But as James knew Matty, Matty knew James too. And they knew him well enough to know that it simply wasn’t true.

“I don’t know who the fuck  _ you _ think  _ you _ are.” George mimicked his tone, meeting James dead in the eyes, with a special kind of hatred that he almost seemed to have reserved for him. “Because I don’t give a shit, what you had years back, what you  _ were _ . Who you  _ were _ to them. Because you’re fucking not anymore.”

George didn’t really think before he spoke. Especially not with the world’s worth of adrenaline pumping through his veins, clouding his brain, and Matty’s eyes: fixated upon on him, with this awful kind of desperation that seemed to tear through his skin, right past his bones, and straight into his heart.

“Because now,  _ I’m _ Matty’s boyfriend. And  _ you’re _ going to leave us the fuck alone.”

George’s words seemed to leave the impact of an earthquake: the whole world stilling around them, as he pulled away from James, grabbing Matty by the wrist, and pulling them off down the hallway. He wasn’t sure where they were headed exactly, but somewhere they could stop, somewhere they could breathe, and somewhere the words that had slipped George’s lips could finally take the time to sink in.

The bathroom was relatively small, but it did the job. With a door to lock behind them, and the space to sit and breathe, and maybe just to purposefully not look at each other for a good ten minutes as the world managed to catch up to them.

George threw his head back against the wall and cursed every stupid thought that had ever dared to make a home inside his brain. Matty perched themself down on the edge of the bathtub, their legs shaking insistently as they brushed their feet against the floor.

The silence was unbearable: stretching out for what seemed like an eternity, as words left unsaid began to fester and make homes and lives for themselves in the back of their throats.

Despite the rather gutsy display George’d had to say for himself, Matty was the one bold enough to break the silence in the end.

“Thank you.” Their voice was soft, tentative even, and the look the two shared was fleeting at best.

“Y-..You’re welcome…” George struggled for quite what to say: finding that he was just beyond uncertain of quite what to make of the situation, and really, their night in its entirety. 

“I thought…” He trailed off, finally finding it within himself to lock his gaze with Matty’s. “I thought you were with Gemma.”

Matty gave way to a shrug - as if the prospect barely bothered them. “She’s here.” He gestured out towards the bathroom door. “Somewhere.”

“Oh.” George gave way to a sigh, mulling over the cold evening air, as the events of the past ten minutes flashed back through his mind for what felt like it might just be forever.

“With her boyfriend.” Matty added, perhaps just to fill the silence. “He seems nice, you know? And that’s pissed me off, because now I’ve basically got no excuse if I end up sleeping with him.” Matty forced themself into a laugh. “But I’m not going to sleep with him. I don’t want to.”

George offered them a smile, tearing his gaze back to his friends, to the start of the night, to everything that seemed to be just so far away. “Adam’s got himself a fucking girlfriend now and everything. I can’t believe I’m  _ both _ the sober friend and the single friend. This was honestly the  _ worst _ party ever.”

“Glad I showed up to cause you some trouble?” Matty cracked a smirk, getting to their feet. “What I’m best for - causing everyone a fucking world of trouble, isn’t it?”

“Shut up.” George shook his head. “You’re no trouble at all. I’m glad to see you. I was worried about you. When you didn’t text me back, especially.”

Matty gave way to a snort. “I didn’t text you back because I didn’t want to deal with you worrying about me.” They folded their arms across their chest. “I mean, you have your friends, and your fun, and I-... I didn’t want to interrupt, you know?”

“You weren’t interrupting anything.” George assured them, taking a step closer. “I would have  _ loved _ for you to have shown up earlier.”

Matty fought a smile off their lips. “Am I asking for too much?” They drew out a sigh. “For my parents not to be weird about everything. Because I feel like everything’s so  _ fucked _ , but everything’s so fine. Because it doesn’t matter what my dad says, does it? And what the fuck does it mean whether my parents mess up with my gender or not- that doesn’t  _ mean _ , like they could have-”

“ _ Matty _ .” George shook his head, pulling Matty into his chest. “You’re not asking for too much. You’re just asking for basic fucking respect. You deserve better than that, and I’m sorry.”

“I want it all to fucking go away.” Matty drew out a sigh, pulling their head out from under George’s arm. “My fucking  _ dad _ , fucking  _ everyone _ , fucking everyone with their stupid happy relationships, and stupid happy lives. And then fucking  _ James _ .”

George’s heart dropped through his chest down to his knees. “Was that who-”

“ _ Yeah _ .” Matty nodded. “That was who you shoved into a wall.”

George managed a smile, cheeks burning red. “Sorry about-”

“He fucking  _ deserved _ it.” Matty’s voice grew loud: louder than George had perhaps expected. Perhaps louder than Matty themself had expected it too.

“No.” George’s tone grew hushed, and his gaze distant. “Not about that. About what I said.”

Matty seemed to freeze on the spot for a moment. “That you were my boyfriend?” They raised their eyebrows, meeting George with a smirk.

“Yeah, I wanted to… get him to fuck off.” George saw through his own words; he doubted he could manage to fool Matty either.

“Yeah…” Matty trailed off, smile creeping onto their cheeks. “You did.”

“Not that… you know… I’d only say that under like dire circumstances, it’s not that the idea of dating you is like so…  _ diabolical _ or some-”

Matty kissed him.

Three months after they’d first spoken in that coffeeshop. After three months of desperate gazes, and confused early mornings. After three months of bright red cheeks, and secrets kept so dear. After three months of stupid lies, told both to themselves and each other. After three months of parties. After three months of uncertainty. After three months of prolonged apologies. After three months of the words they never dared to speak.

After three months of everything under the fucking sun: Matty kissed him.

And those fireworks - the ones Matty had been so desperately missing that time of their very first meeting. This was their time. This was that moment they’d been searching for.

Matty kissed him until neither of them could breathe. With bright red faces, and eyes impossibly wide: worlds entangled between the two of them, and amidst the mess, amidst everything else - Matty caught their gaze in the bathroom mirror. And in that gaze, they caught their reflection smiling right back at them.

“Wow…” George fell back against the bathroom wall, head spinning, as he tried to properly fixate on Matty, or really anything at all. “Fuck…”

A grin tugged at Matty’s lips. They brought their gaze down to the floor, instead focusing on their feet: practically stepping all over each other. They’d made quite the mess - the two of them. But this just wasn’t something that they particularly cared to clean up.

“Yeah…” Matty’s voice was soft - the kind of gentle George had never thought would have been possible to extract from them. “Sorry about that, it was a bit…  _ sudden _ , and I don’t re-”

George kissed them back. With the kind of force and passion to turn the world to its knees. With arms around Matty’s body: one gripped tight around their waist, and the other in their hair. The impact and the weight of it all was just so impossibly grounding, with Matty stretched up onto the tips of their toes: fully enveloped in George, and his lips, and his scent, and his chest, and his arms - in George and his everything. 

In the moment of it all, words grew forgotten, and sentences remained unfinished, and the world didn’t demand anything of it. It was a moment that Matty wanted to stretch on for a lifetime.

“Fuck…” Matty trailed off, pulling away from George, and stumbling a little way backwards under the spell of everything else.

“Shit, I’ve got you.” George curled one arm around Matty, pulling them back towards him.

Matty’s lips toyed with the idea of a smile, as they tilted their head down towards the ground, hiding it all under long black eyelashes: fluttering so innocently in spite of the moment.

“You know, George?” Matty began, voice the kind of curiously tentative that seemed to catch George entirely off guard. 

“Mmm…” He divulged, settling his fingers down onto Matty’s waist.

“You kissed me pretty hard for someone who just wanted James to stop bothering me.” Matty couldn’t help but suppress a giggle, holding George’s gaze under the facade of imploration.

“Hmm…?” George froze for a moment, cheeks burning a rather bold shade of pink.

“Sure you weren’t…  _ jealous _ ?” Matty parted their lips slightly, taking a heavy, baited breath: putting it on entirely too much, but having fun with it regardless. This was different. This was George.

“ _ Jealous? _ ” George repeated the word as if he just wasn’t quite sure what it meant.

“Of all the boys that ever kissed me. Of everyone that’s ever had their hand around my waist before.” Matty pressed back against George’s fingertips.

George flushed, attempting to pull his hand away, but Matty stopped him, placing their hand over George’s, and pushing his fingertips down onto their waist.

“I’ve seen the way you look at me.” Matty tilted their head up to meet George’s: eyes boring great gaping holes in such a sturdy countenance. 

George’s breaths came out in desperate little wavering gasps. Matty couldn’t help but smirk, moving their bodies as one and pressing George back into the wall.

“Don’t think I don’t know what goes in your head.” Matty continued, never letting George’s eyes leave their gaze: putting their all into the piercing stare, and the steady collapse of every pretence of self-control either of them had ever known.

“Every guy has the same thoughts, you see? I know, I think I’ve slept with them all. You all think you’re so special, and so unique, that you’re different, that you’re the one that’ll change the world, that you’re the one that will treat someone differently.” Matty dragged their words out like bullets through their teeth. “But you  _ look _ , and you  _ think _ , and it’s all the same fucking things. Every time. Every guy.”

George cracked a smile, finding an ounce of daring amidst everything else, with fingertips pressing down into Matty’s waist, perhaps hard enough to bruise. George reckoned he even wanted them to.

“No.” George pulled his grin out into a smirk. “You think you’ve slept with the whole world? No. You’ve got a  _ type _ . You go for the dickheads, and you know it’s true.”

“And you think you’re different?” Matty snorted, challenging the look in George’s eyes.

“If I wasn’t, would you have waited three months just to _kiss_ _me_?” George dragged his fingertips down over Matty’s waist and tugged at the hem of their shirt. “Not jealous. Got nothing to be jealous of. There wasn’t a fucking world in which you would have gone off with him again.”

Matty gave way to a sigh, facade crumbling down into a hopeless smile. “You know guys aren’t usually able to tell me my whole life story without even fucking me once?”

George laughed. “What? Do you recite your autobiography when some guy’s balls deep in your ass, or something?” 

Although his tone was light-hearted, teasing at best, it left a much longer lasting impression as George’s fingertips trailed up the inside of Matty’s shirt: burning icy cold holes through Matty’s skin.

“ _ No _ .” Matty blushed, pulling their gaze down, away from George’s. “I’m just  _ saying _ . You’re different. Aren’t you? Course you fucking are. I’ve never kissed someone and had it feel like that in my whole fucking  _ life _ .”

George leaned forward, pressing his forehead against Matty’s. “And you’ve kissed the whole world, haven’t you?”

“Mmm…” Matty nodded. “Whole fucking world.”

George pressed his lips against Matty’s once more: it was quick, chaste, almost graceful, but ebbed and burned with the kind of want and longing that had built up inside of the both of them. Matty knew the way George looked at them; they knew it well for it was simply the very same way they’d always looked at him too.

“Quite a statement, then.” George pulled away, holding Matty’s gaze with a definite sense of ambition. “Isn’t it?”

“Oh, you know me…” Matty managed a smile, leaning back in George’s grasp. “Always love to make a good statement.”

George couldn’t take it any longer, and kissed them again. Kissed them stupid. For they both were. In the great mess of everything else, with burning skin, and bruises just beginning to settle. With lips blown wide and eyes blown wider, with hair tangled around fingertips and knees knocking together. 

George kissed him with meaning. With something to say for himself. For those empty months, for every extended silence, for everything lost inside of them.

-

George wondered if he’d ever been more relieved to find that his mum wasn’t home. He wasn’t exactly quite sure as to where she’d got to, but it was really the last thing on his mind when he walked in at eleven that night, with Matty under his arm.

Matty wasn’t drunk, barely even tipsy anymore, but they were overacting it, with loud, brash movements, and even more obnoxious grins. George wasn’t sure they’d  _ stopped _ talking for even a moment since they’d left the party. 

And still, George wasn’t sure he minded at all. In fact, he was perfectly content to listen to Matty babble until the end of time.  

Because of course, there was nothing of any sort of substance to their words, as they waffled on about the cold, and how big George’s hands were, and how they wanted to get drunk, and how they wanted a smoke, and how it was still cold, and how George was lovely, and how he still had such big hands.

George wasn’t sure there’d been much of particular substance to Matty since he’d first kissed them. At first, the facade had been relatively easy to maintain, with mouthy remarks and endless smirks, but with George’s bedroom door shut safely behind them, Matty fell to pieces.

“ _ George _ …” They perched themself on the end of the bed, watching as George turned back around to face them.

“ _ Mmm _ …?” George watched them carefully for a moment, before sitting himself down beside Matty. “Something wrong?”

Matty gave way to a sigh, falling down into George’s lap. “Yes, and no. Sort of. Maybe.”

“What is it?” George lowered his voice, reaching for Matty’s hand and giving his fingers a gentle squeeze; he’d meant it just to be a quick kind of comforting gesture, but Matty refused to allow him to let go.

“ _ Everything _ …” An anxious kind of breathy giggle had Matty’s chest vibrating against George’s.

“What do you mean?” George lowered his voice further, growing suddenly concerned that something was wrong; that he’d done something wrong; that he’d fucked up - already.

“I…” Matty’s breath seemed to catch in their throat, before they forced themself into a deep exhale, and lifted themself away from George’s lap. Matty shuffled further onto the bed, crossing their legs, and throwing their jacket off onto George’s bedroom floor. George raised an eyebrow, but didn’t question it.

“ _ Talk _ . We need to talk. I mean,  _ kissing _ . That’s all well and good, that’s fucking  _ wonderful _ , Jesus Christ, I  _ love _ kissing you.” Matty was well aware of the rather vibrant shade of pink that their cheeks had turned. “But… we can’t just sit around and have a snog all evening and be done with it,  _ can we _ ? Because… it’s… it’s…”

“Different?” George offered up in Matty’s silence. They gave a nod, cheeks still flushed pink.

George moved to the window, cranking it halfway open, and then placed himself back down beside Matty. The two shared a smile as George rummaged around in his pockets for his cigarettes.

“I’m stupid, I am.” Matty declared, seemingly out of nowhere, with one knee brought up to their chest, and their hair tied back away from their face in a bun.

George cocked his head up, finally retrieving the almost lost pack of cigarettes, and pushed them down on the bed between the two of them. “Stupid?” He raised his eyebrows, placing a cigarette between his lips.

“Yeah.” Matty nodded. “Thought. We  _ knew _ . You know, I always thought we had this, all figured out. All  _ this _ , like we knew how everything was, but I don’t know… maybe we did. But then we kissed and I don’t think I know anything anymore.”

George snorted, blushing with endearment, just despite himself. “Anyway, so my take on everything is that I like kissing you really quite a lot.”

“And so what does that  _ mean _ , you know?” Matty trailed off, lighting themself a cigarette. “Like… George, not to burst your fucking bubble, and like, I know… my gender, and everything, but you can’t fucking go around kissing me and calling yourself straight.”

George grinned. “Did that whole massive conversation we had about sexuality go right over your head?” Matty started at him blankly. “I’m really not straight.”

“Oh…” Matty’s tone changed, lips seeming to freeze in a perfect ‘O’ shape for a moment longer than necessary.

“Probably bisexual.” George mused, thinking for a moment. “I don’t think it’s the most important thing in the world, though. I’m attracted to you, and I’m pretty sure that’s what matters here.”

“It’s just that I didn’t… it would be weird… you calling yourself straight, you know? Cause I’m not a girl, and then… I have a  _ dick _ , and like-”

“I’m  _ aware _ .” George grinned, taking far too much amusement in the stark shade of red Matty had turned.

“And so  _ like _ …” Matty trailed off, shaking their head. They didn’t think it would be like this. They didn’t think they could let it be like this. “I’m scared.”

George’s eyes grew wide; Matty’s statement was rather abrupt, after all. “Of what?”

“Where’s this going? Are we just going to sit here and smoke, and then maybe have a snog once in awhile, where the fuck is this  _ going _ -”

“Wherever you want it to.” George told them.

“I don’t know what I want.” Matty’s tone was bitter, and perhaps even a little self-deprecating.

“Not for the future, at least. Not for anything permanent, for anything that matters. And this matters, because- I don’t want it to be like that… just a  _ thing _ , I want… I don’t know…”

“Then think about the short term.” George suggested, heavy pounding in his chest. “If you don’t know what you want more permanently, think about what you want right now.”

Matty sat and thought for a moment, a smile creeping across their lips. “It’s…  _ weird _ . Well, it’s not weird. It’s just. And you can tell me to fuck off if you want, that’s fine-”

“What is it?” George’s voice grew stern, reaching forward and curling his fingers around Matty’s wrist: tight enough to leave a mark. Matty’s cheeks flushed such a desperate shade of red.

They glanced down at George’s hand and struggled to quite get any words out. “I like… fuck, I’m not… I should have drank more before we left.”

“No you shouldn’t.” George shook his head, moving closer to Matty. “Come on, tell me, whatever it is.”

“You’ll laugh at me. You’ll  _ one hundred percent _ laugh at me.” Matty was beyond certain of it.

George couldn’t suppress a laugh.

“ _ See _ .” Matty’s eyes grew impossibly wide. “You’re even laughing now.”

“Well, if I’m already laughing, it’s not going to come as a surprise if I do, is it?” Matty wasn’t quite sure they could really trust in George’s logic. “Now, come on,  _ tell me _ .”

Matty watched as George pulled his fingers away from their wrist; he couldn’t help but crack a grin at the audible gasp of breath that followed. 

“I… I…” Matty grew redder than George had ever seen them before. “Right now. I’m just sat here, and I’m thinking. And I have stupid thoughts, you know me. And some of those thoughts are about you, and  _ things _ , about stupid things. And I can’t stop thinking about your mouth, and your hands,  _ and _ …”

Matty gained a sudden breath of confidence out of seeming nowhere, and leaned forward, practically slotting them into George’s lap. “What I  _ want _ , right now, more than  _ anything _ , is to get my mouth around your cock.”

George sure as hell didn’t laugh, in fact, George was pretty sure that he didn’t even breathe.

“ _ Fuck _ .” George watched as Matty’s eyes grew wide and glassy, chest shuddering against his own. But this was  _ Matty,  _ this was Matty who’d made a mess of George’s head for months, and now everything seemed easy and simple, and George couldn’t even figure out how to breathe.

“Stop looking at me like that.” Matty rolled their eyes, moving out of George’s lap, and getting up off the bed. “Just tell me what you think.”

“I think I’m gonna die.” George’s response took them both by surprise. “I think you’re actually going to kill me.”

Matty couldn’t help the smirk that crossed their lips; they didn’t bother to utter a single word, and instead just got to their knees.

George watched Matty with wide eyes, as they knelt there, resting against the end of the bed, glancing across at him almost  _ impatiently _ . A thousand thoughts had raced through George’s head, but he still wasn’t sure he could properly grasp a single one.

“Fucking hell.” George moved himself to the end of the bed, locking eyes with Matty and feeling his insides turn to jelly.

“Alright, first-” George let out a shaky breath as Matty rubbed their hand up the inside of his thigh. “Don’t tell Ross. Under no circumstances can Ross know, not even about the kisses, not even about anything-”

“Just Ross?” Matty narrowed their eyes. “ _ Why _ ?”

“Okay, this is going to sound really stupid, but… Ross and John have this fucking  _ bet _ , about… me, about… me and  _ you _ , really. You know?” George turned a rather attractive shade of beetroot red. “And… I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of winning.”

“You’re a bellend.” Matty told him, before very nonchalantly, proceeding to move their hand further up George’s thigh, reaching to undo his jeans.

“ _ Matty- _ ” George stopped them again, this time with strong fingers curled in tightly around their forearm.

“What?” Matty leaned forward, staring up at George with pleading, almost desperate eyes.

“Look, don’t… don’t feel like you have… have to, like… do anything, you don’t want to-”

“George, I literally asked you to let me give you a blowjob-”

“I’m  _ just _ saying, that-... my… I… I… to forewarn you, I’m… quite…  _ big _ .” George didn’t think he’d ever blushed more in his life.

Matty rolled their eyes. “I’ve guessed.” George still seemed bothered. “Come on, now that’s just  _ offensive _ , do you really think I’m going to have  _ trouble _ ,  _ come on _ , do you know me at all?”

Matty didn’t give George chance to even breathe before they had his jeans at his knees, and his cock exposed: growing steadily harder between his thighs.

Matty leaned back onto their heels and fucking grinned. 

“God, you fucking  _ weirdo _ .” George groaned, locking his eyes with Matty’s.

Matty considered telling George to shut up, but came to reckon that they just didn’t need to. Instead they leaned forward and took George into their mouth - after all, actions spoke louder than words.

But never quite as loud as the obscene pop of Matty’s mouth pulling off of George, and the deep guttural groans from deep within George’s chest, released as despite George’s every warning not to, Matty took George as deep as they could, squirming as George pressed against the back of their throat.

It didn’t take Matty long to conclude that George’s ex-girlfriends just must not have been very good at giving head, as it was within five minutes that George had forced himself out of Matty’s mouth, and fallen back onto the bed with release.

Matty had managed a smirk, and maybe even a laugh, before falling so very impossibly silent, and just beyond still, as George really put those strong arms to use, and pulled Matty up into his lap. With shaking thighs, and slow breaths, he kissed them like the world was ending all around them. Fingers digging into their hips, as Matty was forced down onto the mattress with an audible thud, and George crawled over their body with a desperate look of something else in his eyes.

Matty cried out and cursed under George’s hands, impossibly big, and curled around their cock, bringing them to release in strong, quick strokes. George knocked their heads together, pressing their lips in close, but not really kissing Matty; focused instead on the heat, on the warmth between them, on keen fingertips and trembling thighs.

They lay there and and mumbled. Babbled and babbled like they had before: breathless and drawn out, spread across George’s bed, and talking to no one in particular, as George stumbled for a packet of tissues, doing his best in cleaning up the mess they’d made.

And then, even as they lay there, significantly more naked than they had been before, with Matty’s head curled up into George’s lap, and George’s fingers curled around a cigarette. Matty didn’t stop talking.

“You don’t shut up, do you?” George was amused more than anything else. “I wondered, you know? If this might be the one thing that’d shut you up, but it’s the absolute fucking  _ opposite _ .”

“Mmm…” Matty trailed off, cheeks turning red. “I’ve got a lot to say.”

“Like what?” George implored. “What of value? What do you actually have to  _ say _ ?”

“You didn’t fuck my mouth, you know?  _ Everyone _ fucks my mouth. This is proof, if I’ve ever fucking seen it - you’re  _ different _ , this is  _ different _ , this is real, and this is- this is  _ fuck _ … this is  _ us _ , and it’s not what anybody else thinks, and I… I don’t  _ care _ , I don’t fucking care, because I… you’re  _ everything _ , and I… I’m fucking…  _ overwhelmed _ with it. This is special, I  _ know _ it.”

“That’s an awful lot to base off one blowjob.” George couldn’t help but comment, raising his eyebrows in amusement.

“If I know anything, it’s blowjobs, so trust me on this one.” Matty declared, staring up at George’s ceiling. “ _ God _ , Gemma’s gonna- fucking hell… doesn’t matter, honestly, she’s just going to be pleased I’m not going after her boyfriend,  _ for once _ .”

“You’re terrible.” George grinned, running his fingers through Matty’s hair.

“No.” Matty let out a sigh, their eyes flickering shut. “ _ You’re _ terrible.”

“Dickhead.” George’s tone was far too affectionate, as he stubbed his cigarette out, and moved to press a kiss to Matty’s forehead.

Matty grinned, with a thousand retorts just on the edge of their tongue, but not a single one that was really worth it. Instead they leaned back into George’s side, finally still and silent under closed eyes.

In the end, they fell asleep like that, slowly, with hush whispers drawn out over the next half an hour. And for the first time, they’d actually expect to find each other in the morning.

-


	10. here we go this is the end

“That’s a hickey.”

Gemma had one long finger extended out across the kitchen towards Matty’s neck.

Both Amber and Marika perked up, eyes growing wide as they followed Gemma’s gaze across the room.

Amber stood there, a smirk latching onto her lips. “You’ve got one too.” She concluded, her eyes boring right into a similar spot on Gemma’s neck.

Gemma flushed red, and desperately tried to draw the attention back to Matty; yet, in this all, Matty was yet to turn around.

“You’ve both got them.” Marika looked just as smug as her girlfriend. The two shared a look: entirely too pleased with one another for such a relatively menial matter.

“What  _ happened _ at that party?” Amber exclaimed, eying Gemma knowingly. Marika, however, had her gaze fixed onto Matty, who stood there: face to Gemma’s kitchen wall, knuckles turning white as they grasped the countertop for dear life.

Gemma gave way to a sigh - reluctant at best. “Well, I think you can fill in the gaps for yourself. Seeing as I’ve got a  _ boyfriend  _ now.” Even as she directed her words to Amber, her eyes didn’t leave Matty. For in earnest, the slight bitter tone to her words wasn’t formed from malice, but from concern.

The three girls fixed their gaze onto Matty, the room falling off into an uncertain kind of silence.

Matty wondered how long they could take this. How many words would twist their way around their head? Just how long it would take until everything snapped. Until they snapped. Right in two. And what a pretty kind of mess that would make.

“It’s a hickey.” Matty bit their lip, taking just a slight hesitance in confirming what their friends already knew to be true.

“Yes…” Gemma trailed off, struggling to figure out quite how she should handle the situation; it was always difficult with Matty. “We  _ know _ .”

“And that’s…  _ that _ .” The words fell from Matty’s lips with a saccharine kind of nonchalance.

That was when they dared to turn around. Facing Gemma with an almost challenging look in their eyes. With too much left unspoken. 

“So,  _ who _ gave it you?” Amber cut in, attempting to put herself between the unpleasantly vindictive stare that was building between her two friends. It wasn’t a welcome atmosphere for a Saturday afternoon, by any means.

“ _ Well _ …” Matty’s lips curled up into a smile. “I think you can fill in the gaps for yourself.” Perhaps, mimicking Gemma’s tone hadn’t been one of their best decisions, but it was easily one of their boldest.

Gemma took a step forward. “We  _ can’t _ .” She shot Matty a stern look, bringing this to a new level: attempting to convey some hope of sincerity to the mocking gaze fixed in Matty’s eyes.

“Why not?” Matty brushed their hair back behind their ear. “I mean, it’s not  _ particularly _ challenging. Who would I let give me a hickey?”

“The whole fucking world?” Gemma’s response was disapproving at best. She knew she wasn’t going about this the best way, but Matty had made a promise. A stupid kind of promise she knew they wouldn’t keep. But a promise nonetheless. 

Most of all, it was a promise that she’d believed. She’d thought this was it - things getting better. The change. Not unexplained hickeys, not secretive glances, not steady glares, not like it had been before.

Matty stopped for a moment, smile detaching from their face like the removal of a mask. The air around them seemed to grow sour, stretched out at the seams. That was when the impact of everything began to sink in.

Matty stared at her blankly. Words forming over and over again in their mouth, but forever turning sour, fading away into nothingness. It was relentless. It was pathetic. It was everything Matty had thought it wouldn’t be.

“Not anymore.” When Matty finally spoke, their voice was so very quiet, so very tentative, and so very unlike them. As if any kind of confidence had been pulled out from under their feet, and they were left to unwind, to fall into a million pieces, right onto Gemma’s kitchen floor.

“You promised, didn’t you?” Marika watched them carefully, trying to have some form of silent conversation with Gemma from across the room. Yet despite her every effort, it just didn’t work.

The air turned still. Lips lay closed. And brains worked and turned like clockwork: heads filled up not with thoughts but just dozens of moving gears. It was easier like that.

“Yeah.” Matty gave a nod, daring to meet Marika’s gaze at the very least. “There are some promises I keep.”

Amber managed a smile. “That’s good to know.” Against every odd, Matty managed one back.

“Then  _ who _ gave you that hickey?” Gemma met Matty’s gaze with insistence: a horrible kind of want, and an even more pressing kind of need. “Because you  _ promised _ , because you promised that you wouldn’t just… sleep with everyone anymore, and you-”

“I didn’t sleep with anyone.” Telling the truth was a weird kind of sensation for Matty; it almost didn’t quite sit right - knowing that for once, they were in the right. “We fell  _ asleep _ together, but we didn’t  _ fuck _ . Getting a hickey isn’t the same as being fucked in the ass, Gemma, I thought you might have gathered that by now.”

“ _ Still _ …” Gemma gave way to a sigh, shooting Amber a hopeless glance: unable to quite figure whether she was being too pushy or not - whether Matty was perfectly okay, or if they were just far from it. Matty had always been a puzzle - one that she thought she’d solved, but even after six years, it seemed as if she’d been proved wrong once more.

“She’s worried about you.” Amber attempted to mediate the situation the best she could. “We all are, not as much as… we had been before. But… we don’t want things to get like they did before - we don’t want to have to worry like that again.”

“Who gave you that hickey?” Gemma asked them: words so blunt that they could have left Matty’s lips. “Just tell us. Please.”

“Stop…” Matty’s cheeks flushed red. “It’s not like  _ that _ . It’s… it’s  _ different _ .” Matty bowed their head as they moved their hand up to their neck, pressing the pads of their fingers into the bruised skin. 

“What do you mean?” Marika asked, doing her best to save them from the everburning determination in Gemma’s eyes.

Matty pressed their teeth into their bottom lip, twirling a lock of hair around their fingertips. “George.” They gave way to a sigh. “George gave me it.”

The room fell to its knees: buckling with astonishment, with eyes like blank flickering circles, and mouths forever opening and closing, waiting on a long lost hope of something to say, but it had been lost out there, beyond everything - lost away from the deafening silence. Defeated, only, by the smile crippling Matty’s lips.

“It’s like you and Oliver.” They were the one to speak, as if Gemma was the only one in the room with them. “I’m not worried about you. You don’t need to be worried about me.”

“ _ You and George _ …” Amber trailed off, smile growing impossibly wide. “It finally…  _ happened _ , huh?”

“Yeah.” Matty’s cheeks burned red. “It did.”

Gemma stared up at them, shaking her head. “I’m a fucking idiot.” She confessed, meaning every word.

Matty cracked a smirk. “Makes a change, doesn’t it?”

-

George wore a scarf to college on Monday. An ugly, unflattering, slightly effeminate scarf. But a scarf, nonetheless.

His friends laughed at him. Because they were dickheads. And he’d expected nothing less. 

The alternative, however, was impossibly worse. It wasn’t that George was ashamed of his love life, or his sexuality, or Matty, or anything like that. It was all just down to Ross and his stupid fucking bet, and the kind of satisfaction he just didn’t want to give him. 

George wondered if it was childish - the lengths he’d go to avoid it. He decided, however, that he just didn’t care either way.

“You look like a bellend.” Adam was always so very polite to him, and always took care to make a bright start to George’s Monday morning. Today was no exception.

“Morning to you too, dickhead.” George rolled his eyes, using his height as his only defence, and moving next to Adam to use him as an armrest - simply for the sake of getting him worked up.

Ross and John shared a snort as Adam attempted to wriggle out from under George’s arm. George, however, was not quite so inclined to let it happen, and kept him pressed firmly down, pulling him into his side. 

“Fuck off.” Adam groaned, pulling off George’s scarf with one forceful tug, as he flung out of his grasp.

Matty was a dickhead. George had  _ two _ hickeys. One great blooming mess of one across the side of his neck, and another, sat perfectly upon his adam’s apple.

It was a rather interesting start to a Monday morning, to say the least.

“ _ Oh my god _ .” John’s eyes grew wide, tugging at Ross’ arm as he fixed his gaze onto George’s neck.

Adam went white as a sheet, looking almost sickly pale, and within seconds had rather begrudgingly handed George his scarf back.

“Fucking hell.” Ross followed John’s gaze up to George’s neck. “You-  _ fuck _ , it  _ happened _ , oh my  _ god- _ ”

“Jesus fucking  _ Christ _ -” Adam was quick to catch on, staring wide eyed between Ross and George, with a whole world of disbelief lost up in his eyes.

“Matty did that, didn’t they?” Yet despite everything else, John was the only one with the guts to put it properly.

George gave way to a nod, meeting Ross with a half-hearted look of lament. “Shut the fuck up.” His words were harsh, forewarning, but Ross only took them as a dare, or perhaps even as an odd preposition.

“Looks like that’s a  _ win _ for me, isn’t it?” He stretched his arms up in celebration, meeting George with a smirk. “Win for you too, isn’t it, though? Certainly looks like it.”

“Honestly, if you say one more fucking word, I do  _ not _ care how long we’ve been friends, I will fucking knock you  _ out _ .” George buried his head behind his hands, deeply regretting every decision he’d ever made in his life. Especially ever talking to his stupid fucking dickhead friends, that despite everything else, he loved so very much.

“Should strangle him with your scarf.” Adam offered, unhelpfully, looking like he wasn’t far from fucking wetting himself.

“I’ll fucking strangle  _ you _ .” George shot him a glare: one harsh enough to ensure that Adam didn’t quite dare to test it.

And miraculously, somehow, the four of them evaded the subject for the rest of the day.

-

“They… sucked me off, you know?”

George was laid out across John’s living room floor that Tuesday. He’d come over under the pretence on working on some homework together, but such a notion was long forgotten: buried under cups of tea and menial conversation.

John’s eyes grew wide, watching George with intrigue, from where he was sat, just half a metre away, his legs protruding into George’s side in a manner that had to be at least somewhat uncomfortable.

“ _ M-Matty? _ ” John couldn’t quite sustain the same nonchalance he had before, and in fact, even seemed to struggle with the simple matter of holding George’s gaze.

“Who else?” George snorted, fixating his gaze up at the ceiling. “Your mum? The fucking  _ Queen _ ?”

“Classy.” John remarked, unable to stop the roll of his eyes that followed.

“Yeah.” George sighed, gripping his fingertips into the carpet. “Matty sucked me off.”

“Oh.” John didn’t see quite what he could possibly be expected to say.

“I think I’m in love with them.”

Evidently, it had sort of gotten to the point where George had stopped thinking about what he was saying.

“ _ Oh _ .” John found himself perhaps even less prepared to deal with such a confession.

“Well…” George dragged out a sigh. “Probably not properly  _ in love _ . I mean… it’s been… like four days, but… I… I love them. They mean the world to me. Like  _ everything _ . Like everything led up to this, and now everything’s like fireworks, this is  _ everything _ , like this is where it starts. Like a whole new chapter of everything. Something entirely better. I think I’m in love with being alive right now, if not Matty. There’s some sort of love in me somewhere.”

“That’s quite something.” John saw little other option than to point out the obvious.

“ _ Yeah _ .” George was already well aware.

“It’s just… things are making sense now. They make me happy. Like so happy, I have to redefine happiness itself.” George mused, smile fixed upon their lips. “I think maybe that’s love.”

“You’re worse than me and Ross.” John rolled his eyes in disbelief, gagging a little.

George snorted. “Adam’s going to want to kill himself.”

“He really is.” John let out a sigh. “We should get him a cake, or something.”

“A  _ cake _ ?” George looked up at John like he was mad.

“Ice like… ‘sorry all your friends are massive fucking gays with excessive amounts of PDA’ onto it, or something.” John considered the idea perhaps a little more seriously than he should.

“You’re a dickhead.” George told him.

“I’m baking him a  _ cake _ \- that’s  _ nice _ -”

George’s eyes grew wide with wonder. “Bake it into the shape of a dick.”

John looked at him like he’d just redefined the world as he knew it. “That’s  _ genius _ .”

-

“I don’t like it.” Louis’ words were blunt at best, glaring across at Matty through the kitchen.

It was a Sunday. With the late morning / early afternoon sun setting in warmly into the sky. But at that very moment, Matty’s heart tensed up and grew so very horribly cold.

“It’s not about whether  _ you _ like it or not.” Matty bit back, hiding their face behind their hands, wishing they could hide away from the whole conversation too. “Thought you said that yourself.”

Louis shot them a  _ glare _ .

“You coming home so late.” He clarified, keeping his tone the kind of steady and calm that Matty could have never even aspired to reach. “Reminds me of how things were before. When things were bad.”

“But things  _ aren’t _ bad.” Matty stressed - lost as to how they might relay such a point to Louis at all. “Things are the best they’ve ever been.”

“Still…” Louis trailed off: quite unable to pinpoint exactly what it was that was so at unease inside of him. “It’s just… I’m worried about you-”

“Not this again.” Matty groaned, turning away from their brother, and setting their gaze onto the horizon for a moment. “I do wonder how much worrying the world can do for one person. Especially since I really don’t deserve it.”

“People only worry because you make them.” Louis was perhaps the only person that Matty would let speak to them like that. Even George would have been pushing it.

“What do you mean?” Matty stopped for a moment, leaving Louis’ words to echo around their head.

“You don’t tell people what’s wrong. You like making them figure it out for themselves - that’s  _ worrying _ . You don’t tell people where you are, and what you’re doing. You just let them assume. That’s  _ worrying _ . If you were lying in a ditch dying somewhere - it wouldn’t be you that would tell us, it would be Gemma, it would be George. You _ let _ people worry.”

“The entire intricacies of my personal life just aren’t other people’s business though. And I don’t see myself falling into a ditch and dying any time soon.” Matty managed a sigh; they could see where Louis was coming from, but struggled to see how they could reach any real sort of understanding.

“There’s a difference between telling people your whole life story and sending mum a text to tell her you’re with George and that you’ll be home in a couple of hours.” Louis rolled his eyes. Matty took a moment to wonder just when their thirteen year old brother had become their mother.

“Yeah, but… she  _ knows _ , doesn’t she? Where  _ else _ would I be?” Matty flushed red, words dragged out slow and almost painfully.

“You’re missing the point.” Louis shook his head, giving up for the time being. “I want to know how you are. I want to know how you and George are. I’m worried. Because I know how much you love him, and I-”

“Louis, we’re  _ fine _ .” Matty narrowed their eyes - perhaps the last thing they wanted was relationship advice from their little brother.

“There’s a ‘ _ we _ ’ now, is there?” Louis arched his eyebrows, meeting Matty with the kind of challenging look that they absolutely didn’t need on a Sunday morning. “That’s different, isn’t it?”

Matty flushed bright red. “There… might… be.”

-

“You smell like Matty.”

“Hello to you too.” George’s eyes widened: not having expected Ross’ bemused remark to be the first thing he’d heard that morning.

Ross narrowed his eyes across at him. “What have you been  _ doing _ ?”

George shot him a glare. “What? Have you gone around smelling Matty or something?”

John raised an eyebrow, moving closer to George in search of his own verdict. “You do.” He met Ross with a grin.

“ _What_?” George buried his head in his hands: failing to see just what his friends found quite so funny about it.

Adam watched the exchange, smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. “You smell like Matty. Like when Ross smells like John. Like that.”

George’s jaw dropped.

Ross thought for a moment, cheeks turning red. “Hann, you can shut the fuck up, but…  _ he does _ .”

“Now…” John trailed off, meeting George with a smirk. “I  _ wonder _ what that could mean.”

“Means it’s none of your fucking business, don’t you think?” George let out a groan; he hated his friends, he hated them all. “But for your  _ information _ … for the slightest part of me and Matty’s relationship that just  _ might _ concern you-”

“Relationship?” Adam blinked across at him blankly.

“Yeah.” George gave him a shove. “ _ Relationship _ .”

-

“I don’t think I’ve seen you smile so much in my fucking life.” Gemma took a drag of her cigarette, gaze fixated upon Matty.

“It’s weird.” She concluded, watching as their gaze tipped up to meet hers. 

Matty scoffed, pushing their phone back into their pocket. “The idea of me being happy is  _ weird _ to you?” They weren’t so much as offended by the notion - just intrigued.

“Not weird.” Gemma shook her head, casting her gaze out across the night sky, thinking for a moment. “Different.”

“Different’s good.” Matty gave way to a smile, stealing themself one of Gemma’s cigarettes.

She passed them a smile. “Yeah, I’m glad you’re happy.”

“Happy.” Matty repeated: toying with the word, pulling it through their teeth like they didn’t quite even understand it.

“Yeah.” Gemma nodded, leaving Matty to their thoughts.

“ _ Happy _ .” Their voice echoed once more, a smile tugging at the corners of their lips. “Weird that, isn’t it?”

-

“What are you doing?”

Matty stared blankly at George, who’d set himself to closing all the curtains, and turning off all the lights. It was quite the sight, really, especially for Matty, who’d walked in on this.

“Hiding from Adam.” George supplied, as if there was nothing else to say for the matter. Once content with his work, he closed the living door behind them and sat himself down on the sofa, in the middle of the fucking pitch black room.

“Uhh…” Matty dragged the word out between his lips, not quite sure what to make of the situation or their idiot boyfriend at all.

“Right… look… John made him a cake, in the shape of a dick, and  _ okay _ , it was my idea, but it wasn’t my  _ fault _ -”

“You’re a dickhead.” Matty told him, hardly even fazed by it at this point. They reached for their phone, using it as a torch, and directing a beam of harsh white light towards George.

“Fucking hell.” George groaned: blinded.

“Put the fucking light on and stop being a weirdo.” Matty stared him down, a smirk tugging at their lips as George got to his feet and reached for the light switch. “You’re not honestly  _ scared _ of him, are you?”

“ _ No _ .” George seemed very insistent for someone who had been more than prepared to hide away in the dark for the rest of his life.

Matty snorted, dragging George back to the sofa, and sitting themself down into his lip. That shut him up. Matty had known it would.

“He wants to kill me. He  _ actually _ wants to kill me.” George groaned, pressing Matty’s head under his chin and into the crook of his neck.

“Your own fucking fault, though, isn’t it?” Matty snorted: utterly devoid of sympathy. Yet despite that, ready to reach for George’s hand, pressing their fingers together.

“Suppose.” George sighed, leaning forward and pressing a kiss to Matty’s cheek. “I’ve got an idea, though.” He whispered, turning Matty’s cheeks red.

“Mmm?” Matty inquired, desperate to hide the scarlet red colour of their cheeks.

“Should kiss you.” George drew a sigh, moving his fingers to Matty’s sides and pressing them down. “He hates that.”

“What? On the off chance that he’s actually going to break into your house to punch you in the face for being annoying?” Matty turned their head and met George with little more than a large unimpressed stare. “He’s gonna stop and turn around because we’re a bit busy?”

“Alright.” George groaned, burying his head into Matty’s shoulder. “Shut up. I’m  _ trying _ .”

“Trying?” Matty raised their eyebrows, wondering if such a word could even be applied to just whatever it was that George was doing.

“Yeah.” George gripped Matty by the waist, cheeks turning red. “You should kiss me. We should… kiss…”

Matty’s eyes grew wide; it had taken them quite a while to properly get wind of what George could have possibly been referring to, but the very instant they had, there was just absolutely no avoiding it.

“Did you actually just try and use hiding from Adam as an excuse to get me to suck you off again-”

“ _ No _ .” George’s cheeks flushed red: entirely too defensive.

Matty just burst into a fit of laughter, having to brace themself onto George’s shoulder to stop themself from slipping down onto the floor. George seemed significantly less amused.

“ _ Alright _ .” Matty shot him a look, a smirk making its way up their face.

“What?” George stumbled over his own words, eyes growing wide like saucers. Matty couldn’t deny that they loved the effect they had on him; if there were two things in this world that Matty truly loved, it was making people tick, and of course, George. And maybe weed too, thinking about it.

“I’ll suck you off again.” Matty moved closer, lips ghosting over George’s.

“Fuck…” George moved both of his hands to their hips, pulling Matty further into his lap, as he connected their lips, teeth sinking down into Matty’s bottom lip with enough force to sting. 

But that was how George wanted it; he liked the bruises, he liked the marks, he liked breaking Matty down with his hands - he liked knowing he could have that effect on someone, especially someone like Matty, who walked around like they owned the world and everything in it.

Matty pulled away gently, heart beginning to hammer in their chest, but still doing all they could to keep their cool. 

“ _ If _ …” They added, meeting George with a wide, imploring gaze - it had George’s heart hiccuping in his throat.

“If…” George murmured, fingers loosening around Matty’s sides.

Matty smirked. “You’ve got to make me  _ want _ to. Get me in the mood. You’ve got to make me  _ want _ it, like it’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted in the world.”

George cracked a smile, pressing his lips back down against Matty’s: more forcefully than he had ever before. It had Matty shuddering in his lap, and struggling to keep their position, leaving them to push desperately into George’s hands, keeping a grasp on their hips. 

“But you  _ always _ do.” George pulled away, meeting Matty with a stern kind of gaze that had everything crumbling inside. “I’ve seen the way you look at me too.”

George moved his hand up to Matty’s face, resting it against their cheek, pushing up against the underside of their jaw with his thumb. “Isn’t that right?”

Matty squirmed, desperate to pull back any kind of retort, but their voice had left them entirely, leaving them with little more than a pleading whine. Needless to say, it didn’t exactly help their point.

George smirked; he knew Matty all too well.

-

“ _ Hickeys _ . Multiple. Several. A fucking  _ collection _ .”

Gemma was sat at Matty’s kitchen table, mug of tea in hand, struggling to fixate her gaze on anything  _ but _ Matty’s neck.

They flushed a rather telling shade of red, bringing their hand up to the back of their neck and rubbing it, almost in contemplation.

“How are you hiding them?” Gemma asked, genuinely intrigued. From across the room, she could count at least four. Granted, Matty had tied their hair up that afternoon, but still, they were more than visible otherwise.

“I’m not.” Matty gave a shrug, a grin tugging at their lips. 

“Fucking hell…” Gemma’s eyes grew wide.

“It’s interesting.” Matty mused, picking at their fingernails. “Louis just laughs. He thinks it’s brilliant. Like the best fucking thing in the world. Maybe just because it makes dad so uncomfortable. Maybe not  _ uncomfortable _ . But awkward. He sort of doesn’t look at me in the eye whenever he talks to me anymore. Maybe that’s a bit depressing. I’m kind of enjoying it though. Mum was bothered at first, but she’s got over it now, just sort of slips George into every conversation we’re having.”

“What? Exactly like you do?” Gemma raised her eyebrows, eager to mock her best friend. “Hey Gemma, how are you? Then, George this. George that. I love George. Don’t you love George? You won’t believe what George told me the other day-”

“Fuck off.” Matty let out a groan, burying their head in their hands. “She wants me to invite him over. Like for dinner. Like so we can all properly sit there awkwardly and try not to think about my sex-life while she goes on asking George about his future prospects or some shit like that.”

Gemma snorted. “Can I get an invite? Sounds like it’d be pretty funny.”

“Oh  _ fuck off _ .” Matty groaned, letting their tea grow cold.

-

“Awh, I love your mum.” 

George grinned down at Matty, one arm around their waist, and one hand brought up to cup their cheek. They were officially the kind of sickeningly romantic that George had spent the past year of his life criticising John and Ross for being.

“ _ George _ .” Matty groaned, closing their eyes for a moment, attempting to block out the world in its entirety. The walk to Matty’s had already taken twice as long as it had needed to, but still, Matty just wasn’t at all prepared to go inside and say goodbye to George for the night.

George leaned down and pressed a kiss to their lips. It was quick and sweet, and yet there was something so very smug about it.

“You’re absolutely  _ not _ .” Matty told him, for what was growing close to the thousandth time. “You’re fucking not.” They continued, even as George just grinned down at them, as if the entire situation could never frame itself in anything but amusement.

“It’d be nice.” George offered, kissing Matty once before pulling away. Still, even now, he was unable to stifle a giggle as Matty fell down from their tip toes to their normal height.

“Yeah, well you think  _ fucking _ rich tea biscuits are nice so I don’t know what you’re on about-”

“They  _ are _ .” George protested, grin plastered to his lips as he reached forward and fixed Matty’s hair - from where he’d messed it up, of course. Matty rolled their eyes: so used to this all by now.

“Still there’s a difference between eating a fucking biscuit and like  _ meeting _ my parents. Like…” Matty trailed off, cheeks burning red - the situation had been eating away at their insides for what felt like forever.

“I’ve already met them, though. It’s not like anyone’s going to be surprised.” Matty, for one, was just entirely astounded as to how George was actually just entirely calm and open to the prospect.

“When the fuck have you met my dad?” Matty shook their head across at George. “Okay, you can think my mum’s nice, but you’ve literally never even had one fucking conversation with my dad.”

“I have.” George persisted, the corners of his lips twitching up into a smile. “Last week. When I walked you home, and it was like midnight. And you said you’d be home at eleven. So you only kissed me once before rushing inside, and your parents were waiting up for you, in case you’d died or anything.”

“Yeah.” Matty rolled their eyes, groaning a little. “That was a…  _ lovely _ … experience. I think my mum sort of forgot I wasn’t actually fifteen anymore that night.”

George snorted. “Well, I was stood out on your drive for a minute, because I watched you go in, and then your dad spotted me and opened the living room window. He was quite pissed off at me, but he was relatively nice about it.”

“He what…?” Matty’s eyes grew wide - this was a story that George had somehow neglected to ever mention to them.

“I think… ‘of for fuck’s sake, buy them a fucking watch for Christmas, will you?’... were his exact words.” George managed a grin, much more amused by the situation than anything else.

“Oh my god…” Matty’s eyes grew wide, bringing their hands up to hide their face.

“I apologised and told him it wasn’t going to happen again.” George cracked a grin, pulling Matty back into his chest. “And you should go inside now, so I can keep that promise. And so your dad won’t hate me. And so that dinner your mum wants us to have with them isn’t going to be the most awkward thing on the planet.”

“I hate you.” Matty retorted, pulling away from George. “I actually  _ hate _ you.” Of course, they didn’t mean a single word.

George caught a smile, watching as Matty made their way down the drive and to their front door. “I love you too.”

And on that December evening, out in the cold, as the sky began to open up with rain, everything froze, like the ice on the roads, like the forever distant snow.

Because they’d never said it like that before.

And suddenly, there was everything, laid out on the pavement between them, as Matty stood there, face illuminated in the porch light, and George thought about just running off into the darkness, down the street, to get himself into a state and refuse to ever deal with this.

But he didn’t.

It took Matty a minute. Maybe two.

But they made their way back up to the top of the drive and grabbed George by the hands, pushing their lips together with force: with the kind of warmth that felt so out of place for the evening.

“I love you too.” Matty whispered, words pushed like a secret to George’s chest as they pulled away. Their eyes dared to flicker up to meet George’s. “Dickhead.”

George snorted, watching through the cold as Matty finally made it back inside. 

They were a good twenty minutes late home that night, but they couldn’t muster even the slightest care in the world. Things were good. They were happy. There’d never been a winter that had felt quite so warm.

-

It was a Saturday night. Their first time. In George’s room. Blushing and giggling like they were fifteen.

Matty was in love.

Matty was in love out in the cold, with intertwined fingers turning red, and George’s lips leaving warm, tingling bursts of life against their cheeks. In love with those forever moments.

Matty was in love up in the warmth, sharing the same blanket - the two of them, and limbs entangled in a mess they never hoped to clean up. In love with those December afternoons.

Matty was in love amidst the darkness, streetlights lay like ominous spectators to the frozen, teasing kisses taken on the end of avenues, to fade out into long sleepless nights and the steady rhythm of another heartbeat beside them - something to keep them sane. In love with those impossible nights.

Matty was in love up in the lights, a golden bright glow to keep them warm at night. They’d figured in the end, that if George was the sun, then they were not the moon, but the Earth. It was thoughts like that, they shared in blindingly bright mornings - forever hesitant to leave their beds. In love with each other.

Matty was in love with George.

And the evening had been slow, with their fingers curled around George’s - a night out drinking with what had felt like the whole world - a night desperate to get away from their friends, to get some time alone, to sit down and just kiss George for hours, to just sit with him and sip a cup of tea. Matty would do that. They thought it was funny really - the way things had become.

Matty hadn’t drank that night; George’s words echoing around his head from the week before.

From a hazy Wednesday, and a house to themselves, drunk just off wine, and Matty out on their knees, staring up at George and begging him to fuck them. It had been a tiring night.

That was when Matty knew. This was love. Not just different. But special. But love. But the two of them.  _ Something _ . Not just anything.

George had looked at Matty, long and hard, like it was the first time they’d met, and he still hadn’t quite had chance to figure them out. Now it had been months, and still, George was hardly much closer to any real notion of answers.

He’d told them he wouldn’t do anything like this. When they were that drunk. Matty wasn’t sure anyone had ever considered them like that in their life. Matty wasn’t sure anyone had ever cared quite so much. But George did.

George had sat them down and made them a cup of tea. And told them everything would be fine, and that they were loved. Not that they were beautiful, not that they were pretty. But that they were loved. That they mattered. That they were better than this.

Matty had always been an ugly crier. But George didn’t care. George put them to bed, and they slept, softly, with stuttered yawns, and murmured ‘Love you’s pressed into George’s chest under the guise of half-hearted kisses.

It really hit them with their jeans on George’s bedroom floor, and their shirt hanging low over their thighs. “Weird this, isn’t it?”

“Weird?” George stretched back against his bedroom wall, shirt strewn across the bed beside him.

“Mmm…” Matty did try not to stare at George’s chest - it was an attempt, at least. “Firsts… and that.”

“What? My first time with a guy?” George snorted, beckoning Matty closer. “For one, it’s not like I’ve never seen a dick before in my life. Secondly, it’s not like girls don’t have assholes too. Whether you like to think about it or not.”

Matty pulled a face, and drew out a sigh. “My first time with someone I love.”

George’s heart began to hammer inside his chest.

“What about… James…?” George drew his mind back to that night - the night it had all began. When such a dramatic ending had brought such a wonderful new beginning.

Matty shook their head. “Not really. I loved him. At the time. But how you love someone when you’re sixteen and you don’t really know what love is.”

George gave a nod. Matty drew a breath.

“This is different.”

The two cracked a smile.

And the moment passed.

Matty made their way towards the bed, sitting themself down between George’s legs, and just stopping for a moment. “How is this going to work, with you losing your homosexual virginity, and me being too emotionally attached to think properly.”

George managed a smile. “Are you say you love me so much that you’ve forgotten to how to fuck?” 

His eyes grew wide, taking in Matty’s appearance - the way the moonlight reflected their skin: sloping down over their shoulders like they were little but ripples across a lake.

Matty turned red. “Shut up. Just an odd situation.”

“Do you not trust me to fuck you or something?” George was, at best, amused by their situation, brushing Matty’s hair back, out of their eyes, and pressing a quick gentle kiss to their forehead.

“Look… I’m not having you…  _ breaking _ my asshole-”

“ _ Matty _ .” George buried his head in his hands. “Love… what are you-”

“Trust me, George, for a start, you need to use like five times the amount of lube you think you need to use.” Matty met him with a smirk, shuffling forward into George’s lap and just thinking for a moment.

“I’ll be careful, I promise-”

“No, I’ve got it.” Matty cracked a smile, pressing a kiss to George’s jaw. “This is perfect. This is… this is  _ yeah _ . I think you’ll like it.”

“You  _ think _ ?” George snorted, struggling to imagine any situation involving Matty and his dick which he wouldn’t be more than contented by.

“So… I’ll ride you.” Matty watched in amusement as George turned red. “How does that sound?”

George gave out gaspy little breaths in the place of words, but still, Matty just about figured what he meant.

“I mean, I am all for, being pounded, facedown onto the bedroom floor, but like…” Matty gave way to a giggle. “Got standards now, haven’t I? I’m classy now.”

“Y-yeah…” George managed little more than a gasp in response.

Matty hit him with a wink. “We’ll work our way up to that, don’t you worry.”

-

“So, great, now  _ I’m _ the single friend.”

Adam’s girlfriend broke up with him two weeks into December. 

It wasn’t that he was particularly pleased about it, but he didn’t seem to be anywhere near as devastated as anyone expected him to be. The truth was that he just felt much more up for burying it all in drink than actually exploring his feelings.

“I mean, look on the bright side - that’s one less person to buy a Christmas present for.” George really wasn’t sure why he said half the things he did. Perhaps it was just the kind of thing that would cheer Matty up. But Adam, not so much.

“Yeah, I could kill you as well - that’d be another less person to buy a Christmas present for.” Adam bit back, rolling his eyes across at him through the cold.

It had been John’s idea. To get everyone together. George, personally didn’t see how surrounding Adam with people in relationships would help him at all, but considering how badly his attempts to comfort Adam had gone, he reckoned that maybe he just didn’t get a say anymore.

“This is shit.” Adam concluded, voice louder than was by any means necessary, as the four boys made their way through the cold, hoping to end up at Gemma’s house within the next half an hour.

“Thanks.” John grumbled, staring up at Ross, in the form of a desperate plea of help.

“Welcome.” Adam supplied, sneaking a glance across at George, who was really little more than slightly amused by the situation as a whole.

“You’ll have fun. Shut up.” Ross told him, pulling Adam into his side with perhaps too much enthusiasm. Adam looked like he wanted to punch him. George snorted.

“There’ll be alcohol.” George offered, lips twisting up into a smile. “Shut up.”

Adam gave a shrug, and continued down the road. “Maybe it’ll be alright then.”

“You’re turning him into an alcoholic, you are.” Ross shot George a look, all too severely displeased for such a mildly amusing situation.

“I hardly even  _ drink _ .” The look George shot him back with wasn’t short off incredulous. 

“But  _ Matty _ -”

“Hard to believe as it is, me and Matty are actually two separate people.” George narrowed his eyes, shaking his head across at his dickhead friends.

They just laughed right back at him. Like the notion itself just wasn’t far off preposterous.

-

It was Matty that got drunk in the end.

Beyond drunk. Shattered. Babbling and mumbling like a madman, with cheeks a deathly shade of a pale, and fingertips hooked onto George’s ribs.

George carried them home in the end.

It hurt. 

Not the act of carrying them. Matty was really quite light - more so than George had even thought. But just, the fact that he had to do it. That Matty had gotten like that in the first place. That he’d let them.

What hurt more, was ringing the doorbell, and looking Matty’s mother in the eye. She was nice, and George liked her; he just didn’t reckon she’d like him very much at all after that night.

Her eyes grew wide when she caught sight of George, struggling to keep Matty onto their feet, as they mumbled nonsense that was long beyond incomprehensible, throwing their limbs about like they didn’t quite know how to control them anymore.

“They’re just drunk.” George saved her from asking, from the trouble of her mind, hurrying to worry about all the things that mothers did. Perhaps just on this occasion with reason, though. “Really quite drunk.”

“Matty, you-...” Denise didn’t quite know what to say, or if there was any point in scolding them in this state.

“They’ll be alright.” George wasn’t quite sure if that was entirely true or not, but he didn’t half hope so. He certainly didn’t have the medical authority to make such a judgement, but it wasn’t like he was going to carry Matty home and tell their mother that they were probably going to die.

“How  _ much _ has he had to drink?” Denise’s eyes grew wide, struggling to help Matty through the door.

“They.” George corrected her, cheeks flushing red.

“Is that really the most important thing right now?” She raised her voice a little way, starring George down with the kind of anger that seemed so entirely out of place.

“It’s important regardless.” George snapped, speaking before he had much chance to think. “I think... about eight tequilas… might have been nine.” He supplied, biting his lip.

“Don’t fucking let them drink that much.” For a moment, it looked as if she’d chosen George to blame in all of this.

The air grew cold. Like they had all forgotten, that although highly inebriated, Matty was still very much awake.

“I’m not their  _ mum _ .” George bit back, forgetting just who he was speaking to for a moment.

Denise let out a sigh, drawing her lips out into a thin line. “And Matty’s an adult. I  _ know _ . But please, fucking look after him.”

“Them.” George continued, feeling Matty mumble something against his chest.

“Fuck.” Denise buried her head in her hands. “It’s hard, you know? This is all hard, Matty’s… complicated… I think sometimes, I’m not a very good mum, at all.”

George didn’t quite know what to say to that, as he stood there, in the nighttime air, with Matty barely conscious under his arm, and their mother spilling her heart out to him over the doorstep.

“I’m sorry.” She let out a sigh, helping Matty inside. “Come on, you need to lie down.” 

George stayed there, out by the door, listening as she helped Matty through to the living room and set them down onto the sofa. By the time she returned, barely two minutes later, she seemed a little startled by the fact that George was still there.

When he thought about it, George was too.

“I’m sorry.” He met her with a sigh. “I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“No.” Denise shook her head. “It’s not up to you, it’s up to them.”

-

“Mum’s told Dad you’re an alcoholic.” 

Matty figured that just, really, there was no better way to wake up than to those words, pulled out, far too naively, from the mouth of their thirteen year old brother.

“It was  _ one _ night.” Matty groaned, burying their head back down into the sofa cushion. If they listened hard enough, they could just about catch the sound of their parents conversation from somewhere else in the house.

“Are things getting bad again?” Louis asked, watching Matty warily. “Because you should talk-”

“Nothing’s getting bad again. It’s just me. And my fucking head. And my fucking gender and fucking everything.” Matty figured they were just far too hungover to think about keeping their language clean in front of their brother.

Louis looked rather taken aback, pondering over Matty’s words for a good minute before they actually came to any sort of response. Matty didn’t mind: they liked the peace; they needed the quiet.

“Are you not sure about your gender again? Is that it?” Louis managed to form any kind of logical conclusion from the very little Matty had given him.

Matty shook their head, managing a smile, just for Louis’ sake. “No. I’m fine as I am.”

“Then what is it?” He took a step closer, holding Matty’s gaze with the kind of integrity that no one should possess at just thirteen years old. “I know it’s something.”

Matty buried their head back into the sofa. “Maybe you should tell mum and dad that I might be more inclined to come back here sober, if they just might be more inclined to stop calling me ‘he’.”

-

“We’re trying.” Denise sat Matty down at nine that night. 

They’d made the simple mistake of sneaking downstairs for a cup of tea, but she’d been there, laying wait in the kitchen, as if she’d planned some form of ambush.

Really, Matty hadn’t even expected that Louis would have said a word in the first place. They hadn’t much cared either way, but when they faced everything so directly, it just felt wrong. Weird. To put it simply, this wasn’t a conversation that Matty wanted to be having.

“I just forget sometimes. I’ve spent eighteen years calling you ‘he’, I mean, it’s a change, isn’t it? I forget sometimes. Especially when I’m stressed and worried, and the only thing on my mind is what you’ve done to yourself, never mind anybody’s gender.”

“Funny that.” Matty snorted, shooting their mum a look. “Guess you just can’t imagine, can you? Sometimes it’s the only thing on my mind. And trust me, it’s  _ always _ there - my gender.”

“Matty, you can hardly remember my  _ birthday _ , this isn’t…” She trailed off - truthfully, she just didn't have the slightest idea of what to say, of how to deal with this at all. 

How it had been at the start, the hugs, and the persistent ‘I love you’s had been fine, but meeting George’s the night before, catching that look like he’d wanted to physically force the word ‘them’ into her chest, so it might leave a great gaping hole that she’d never be able to forget - that was something else.

“I never mean to. You know that, don’t you?” Matty managed a nod.

“And I’m sorry.” She added, watching Matty carefully for any signs of response or acknowledgement, but found instead that she’d received no such thing.

“I just think… that how much you drank was much more of an issue. I mean-”

“What?” Matty snapped, life sparking inside of them out of seemingly nowhere. “Because my gender’s a fucking  _ issue _ , is it? Well sorry, for all the fucking bother.”

-

“It’s bullshit.” Matty skimmed their words like a stone across the water.

“I’m sorry.” George pulled his arm around Matty’s shoulders, holding them close there in the cold, with winter really setting in around them: trees bare and each breath stark like smoke: thick in the cold air.

“It’s actually fucking  _ bullshit _ .” Matty kicked at the ground with their toe, pulling away from George’s grasp.

“I know.” George assured them, for the seven hundredth time. “I’m sorry.”

Matty stared out across the lake, out into the world, almost frozen over. It all felt too quick: like summer had been pulled out from underneath their feet. But back in summer, Matty hadn’t even known George at all.

“I hate them. I  _ actually _ hate them.” Matty folded their arms across their chest: the posterchild for petulance. But still, George listened, and George considered the weight and impact of every single thing they had to say.

“I thought it was just your dad…” George trailed off, daring to reach through the icy air for Matty’s hand.

Their fingers didn’t met his.

“It’s fucking  _ everyone _ , George. It’s fucking everything. I’m fucking tired. I’m fucking sick. I want to curl up and never see anyone again. I want to just fade away, to dissipate, like water droplets into the lake, like stones sinking to the bottom. I want to fucking freeze over and sleep through the whole of winter, and wake up again when it’s warm, when things are better.”

Try as he might, Matty’s words were just something George couldn’t quite swallow.

He focused on the horizon, on the blue grey sky, on the slow, steady stuttering of his heart in his chest, and Matty’s hand, daring to reach for his. George gave Matty’s hand a squeeze, managing a smile.

“You don’t need to do that.” George assured them, pulling Matty back into his chest. “I’ll keep you warm.”

Matty pressed their head back into George’s chest and sighed: warm breath fading away into cold air. They needed a smoke. They needed a drink. They needed more than freezing December afternoons and depressing conversations. Things weren’t how they used to be, but there was nothing they could do about that.

“If you try so hard to keep me warm, you’re going to get cold yourself.” Matty warned him, drawing their words out like tentative wavering sounds, rather than actual sentences.

“That doesn’t matter.” George’s response was instantaneous: plummeting deep down inside of Matty.

“What? Even if you end up freezing?” Matty wondered if this was when they might have dragged out the metaphor on for too long, but regardless of anything else, things were easier to talk about that way, and perhaps that was just what they needed.

“Yeah. Doesn’t matter.” George moved their arm down to Matty’s waist. “I want to keep you warm.”

“That’s a fucking stupid way to think.” Because if there was one thing Matty would say they were good for, it was telling things like they were.

“I’m not even half the person you think I am.”

-

“Is everything okay?” 

George couldn’t place how he was possibly supposed to answer that.

Unfortunately, however, that he doubted that ‘sorry mum, but I’ve not got the slightest fucking clue’ would hardly be classed as an at all appropriate answer.

“George…” She watched him carefully from across the living room. The house fell silent: the kind of unnaturally still that George hadn’t seen since his childhood, the remnants of some slightly less than pleasant memories.

“I’m worried about Matty.” He gave way to a sigh, words twisting around his throat as if they’d set out to suffocate him.

She softened her gaze, considering the situation in a new light. “Why? What’s wrong?”

George shook his head.

“I don’t really know.”

-

There were marks on George’s shoulders. From fingernails dug in hard, gripping him desperately, as if for life - from moments in which the world was pulled out from beneath them, like they were just floating, struggling to survive.

It wasn’t about the marks themselves, but instead, what they really did mean. 

The changes were subtle, but omnipresent: glassing over Matty’s eyes when they fucked, and spilling out amidst a heap that eloquence had long forgotten, when they lay neck deep in unsavoury confessions, in quiet rooms, in the sinking feeling shared in two chests - things weren’t like they used to be.

It scared George sometimes. Really, it had been Matty that had claimed so profusely that this was it, that this was everything, that this was that magical kind of  _ different.  _ But George had felt it too. Back then. Even now. But there was something else.

“Like that.” Matty’s tone was commanding, much more vocal than they usually were, seeming to be in a much more well put together state as well.

George grabbed Matty’s wrists from where they’d lay, fingertips trailing down his chest, and pinned them back above his head with one hand. He used the other to push Matty’s thigh up and back against their chest; they were shuddering slightly, as if not entirely able to keep themself in place. Yet, things weren’t quite as desperate and flailing as they often were.

“Do you  _ insist _ on holding me down?” Matty drew their gaze over to their wrists, pinned back on the mattress behind their head, curls fawning out like a crown of soft brown feathers.

“Do you  _ insist _ on being so mouthy?” George cracked a smile, kissing Matty quickly, but Matty’s lips barely moved against his own. 

George stopped, pulling away from Matty, and releasing their wrists. The two just stared at one another for a minute, although it was a minute that seemed to drag on for time eternal.

“What’s wrong?” George cut to the chase, biting down on his bottom lip.

Matty shook their head, stretching their hands out upwards, as if to grab George and bring him back down again. George shook his head.

“Tell me what’s wrong.” He told them plainly, stealing that same commanding tone back.

“Fuck me, George,  _ please. _ ” Matty’s eyes went wide: begging - the kind of desperate that only made George grow more uneasy.

“Matty…” George trailed off, everything seeming to stop inside of him.

“ _ Please _ .” Matty pushed themself up onto their elbows, eyes meeting George’s with all the desperation in the world. “I  _ need _ it.”

George swallowed hard; this wasn’t want, this was need. This was Matty’s brain crumbling to pieces, and this was them trying to fix everything in bed. Perhaps the only way they really knew how. This was everything all over again, and for the life of him, George just couldn’t see as to why.

“Tell me what’s going on.” George’s voice was stern,  _ persistent _ . “In that head of yours.  _ Please _ .”

Matty pulled at their bottom lip, stumbling over the possibility.

“ _ Please _ .” George’s eyes grew pleading, lighting up with the kind of concern that had Matty dizzy.

“After.” They made a hasty promise, reaching their hands up to George’s shoulders.

“After?” George raised his eyebrows.

“Mmm.” Matty gave a nod. “I promise.”

-

It hardly came to much of a conversation in the end. George should have known better. George should have known what state Matty would be in - with eyes bleary and wide, stumbling out false hopes and apologies like they were nothing at all.

“So… what’s wrong?” George lay out across his bed, still very much naked, but putting some clothes on was probably the last thing on his list of priorities for that moment.

Matty gave a shrug, falling back against George’s bedroom wall. The words ‘I promise’ ran back through their mind, but didn’t seem to make any kind of significant impact.

“You don’t know?” George tried to fill in the gaps for himself - it was like that a lot of the time with Matty, but it was all beginning to wear a bit thin. 

There was only a finite number of things that could go wrong, a finite number of red flags George could see, before things would have to change. And he’d have to think of something more drastic to do about it than sit around with a hazy post-coeital shadow of Matty.

Matty shook their head.

“How can you  _ not _ know what’s bothering you? Surely…” George dragged his words out, before giving in and shaking his head. “Is it everything? Or does it at least feel like that?”

“No.” Matty shook their head again. “I know.”

George stopped for a moment. He wondered if even his heart did too. It was a moment spent watching Matty, struggling to form words in his mouth.

“I can’t talk about it.” Matty filled in the gaps for him in the end.

George swallowed hard, attempting to regain more of a grip on himself. “You  _ can’t _ or you just don’t want to?”

Matty gave a shrug. It was that which they didn’t know.

George let out a sigh, setting his gaze across to the series of pictures on his bedroom wall. He first brought his mind back to the very first photo - the one Matty had taken of him unaware, the one they’d left with that note, with had his insides churning up and his head spinning.

The ones that followed had been taken on nights spent together, curled up in each other’s arms, or in early mornings, catching beautiful sunrises in the background. There were a few just plain stupid ones - the result of lazy afternoons and empty homes.

They looked happy like that. Really in love. Like everything was good.

Like this horrible melancholy bitter sadness wasn’t seeping in and slowly tearing everything apart.

It wasn’t like Matty was oblivious to it; there was no doubt that they were so much more than aware. That just had George asking what had left them to such a state - what they possibly couldn’t bring themself to say.

“What happened to telling each other everything?” George’s voice was low, barely a whisper, like it held the power to soon be forgotten. “What happened to the Matty that barely knew me and sat down and spewed out their whole life story?”

“That was never my whole life story.” Matty’s tone was withdrawn, and unpleasant at best. George reckoned however, that he did largely deserve it. “That was just how I fucked up. How I ruined things with Gemma, how I needed  _ help _ .”

“And you don’t need help now?” George was hesitant to believe such a notion.

Matty shook their head. “Not from you, no. You’re my boyfriend not my fucking therapist.”

George drew out a sigh. “It’s me, isn’t it? I’ve done something. Matty, please just-”

“Jesus Christ, George, not everything’s about  _ you _ .” Their tone was harsher than they’d meant it to be, everything was all wrong: crumbling around them. And try as they might, they just couldn’t stop it.

They lay there, naked and silent, like the world’s most depressing couple, like they were in their forties already, like there wasn’t a word to be spoken in the bedroom, like there was nothing of much meaning to spoken out of it.

And two hearts began to stutter inside of two cold chests.

-

Amber always made tea just how they liked it. Maybe that was the sole reason they’d gone over to her’s in the first place - or at least just the only reason they’d dare to admit out loud.

It was a dreary Tuesday afternoon, with cloudy grey skies and enough rain to bring the whole town underwater. There was a part of Matty that day that very much liked such an idea: of everything just washing away and beginning to disappear.

They curled up against Amber’s bedroom window, watching the rain as thoughts ran rampant through their head, and falsified stories began to make sense of themselves.

Amber didn’t dare to approach any kind of serious matter until Matty had downed at least half of their cup of tea. As much as she wasn’t Gemma, she still certainly knew the way Matty did and didn’t want to talk about things. It was significant, however, that they’d taken it upon themself to come over, to admit that something was wrong, and that she needed to listen, regardless of whether she wanted to or not.

“You know sometimes…” Matty trailed off, holding their mug of tea with both hands, resting it in their lap as they watched the raindrops roll down the cold glass pane of the window.

“Mmm?” Amber gave a nod of encouragement, watching as Matty twitched nervously: drumming their fingertips against the mug, and forever tucking and untucking their hair from behind their ears.

“Sometimes you lie to people to avoid hurting their feelings. To avoid making situations worse. Because you think that then, telling a slight…  _ deviation  _ from the truth will just make everything better for everybody.” Matty drew out a sigh, turning their head to meet Amber’s gaze.

“How big of a lie?” She asked, seeing right through all the flowery bullshit Matty had needed to prelude their story with.

Matty gave a shrug. “I didn’t say anything that was really entirely false, but… I just… omitted certain details, that are kind of… really essential to get any grasp of the actual…  _ truth _ .”

“So you avoided the truth, because you didn’t want to hurt someone?” Amber watched them carefully for a moment.

Matty gave a nod. “And now, not telling him has hurt him even more. Now it’s hurt us both. It’s hurt me trying to hide it, and it’s all…  _ fucked _ .”

“Has he found out?” Amber lowered her voice slightly.

Matty shook their head. “He won’t. But… it’s put…  _ distance _ between us, because he thinks the fucking  _ world _ of me, and I’ve… this thing… it’s bad. I’m not the person anyone really thinks I am. And I feel so fucking  _ guilty _ for it.”

“George loves you…” Amber drew out a sigh; it didn’t take much to figure that he was indeed the subject of Matty’s concern.

“It was a bad lie. It was a stupid fucking lie. I just didn’t want him to think any less of me, but he’s…” Matty buried their head behind their mug of tea. “He  _ knows _ something’s up and he’s desperate for me to tell him, and I just… fuck… I don’t even know what to  _ say _ .”

“You should tell him. Before it gets even worse.” There wasn’t a single hint of doubt in Amber’s words, and that was what Matty needed - someone to make sense of it all for him.

“He’s going to hate me.”

“Then let him hate you. For a  _ while _ . Because he’s going to come around soon enough afterwards.”

Her smile seemed placid, an oddly contented kind of stern, that digged and tugged at Matty’s insides, leaving their heart slowing in their chest, and their brain turning to mush up in their head. As really, they just didn’t know what to think or feel at all.

-

“Mum…” Matty’s voice was so tentative that it was almost forced: dragged out across the living room in the late night air.

She stirred from where she’d sat herself down on the sofa, half way to sleep, with a cup of tea going cold out on the table before her. It took her a moment to really process the fact that Matty had actually initiated a conversation with her, and not only that, but came and sat down with her too.

“What’s wrong?” She held their gaze, seeing through any kind of facade instantaneously; she was their mother, after all.

“I’m sorry.” They swallowed hard, bringing their hands up into their lap and sighing.

“About what?” Denise watched them carefully.

“About being a shit kid.” Matty’s response was as blunt as it could possibly be.

She met them with a smile. “But you’re not a kid anymore.”

“Yeah…” Matty trailed off, pulling their knees up to their chest. “Wish I was, you know? Wish everything was simple, and I… I hadn’t messed with so many people’s feelings and told so many lies, and…”

“What have you done?” There wasn’t an ounce of patronisation in her voice, meeting Matty openly, with the kind of respect that Matty absolutely didn’t reckon they deserved. “Look, whatever it is, I still love you, and you’re still my child.”

Matty’s eyes grew wide. “Wow, you actually didn’t say son that time.”

Denise cracked a smile. “I told you - I am getting better, I  _ am _ trying.”

Matty watched her for a moment, in the evening light, in the world closing its eyes around them, and everything settling down into peaceful, placid shades of grey.

“I lied to George about something.” Matty’s explanation was reluctant at best. “Something important. Not  _ vastly _ , but important, nonetheless.”

“He loves you.” Denise’s response was immediate, and without a hint of doubt in her mind. “Tell him. He’ll understand.”

“Are you  _ sure _ ?”

“That boy’s carried you, passed out drunk, blathering and groaning, all the way home. To face your, understandably, very angry mother, and whatever she had to say for him that late at night, but all just to make sure you were safe.”

Matty’s cheeks flushed red.

“Yes, I’m sure.”

-

“You look shit, mate.” Ross eyed George warily as he made his way into class that morning.

George gave a shrug: overly complacent, hiding under a facade of nonchalance; Ross knew him well enough to see right through it.

“I’ve not slept.” Was what George supplied in the end, muttered under his breath, gaze fixated off out the window.

“Matty?” Ross raised his eyebrows, having gathered some sort of grasp on the less than fantastic situation that the two currently found themselves in.

George gave a sigh. “I’m worried.”

“You’ve got every right to be.” Ross assured him: glad to get so much out of him, especially so early in the morning.

“Still, it’s not like I actually  _ make _ him tell me anything, so it’s all fucking…  _ fucked _ . And this is going to fall apart like things fucking always do, and we’ll all go back to being unhappy and boring.”

Ross bit at his lip: quite unsure of what to say to that. “Explain that to them. Make them understand.”

George just laughed it off. “There’s no making Matty understand anything - they’ve either got it, got you from the first moment, or they’re simply not fucking interested.”

“Well, maybe.” Ross let out a sigh. “Like you two have always been saying. Maybe this is just  _ different _ .”

-

It was late one night. It got late every night, but this one was different. Matty could almost feel their soul unravelling from inside their chest, thrusting some unfortunate conclusion upon them, and upon the rather dreary home they’d made for themself amidst all this mess.

Matty didn’t say a word. But the silence was enough; Gemma read it all off the distant look in their eyes, in a way that Matty would never quite comprehend.

She didn’t push it; she knew there was no use in pushing Matty - they either did or didn’t want to involve you in something, and that was very much that. Instead, she moved towards the gust of late night air drifting in through her bedroom window, and lit herself a cigarette.

Matty reached for the packet Gemma had discarded down onto the bed, stealing a cigarette, more for the sake of their own sanity than anything else. They’d smoked three before anything more was said.

“There are things that… I… don’t  _ tell _ people.” Matty’s voice was soft, but confident enough to surprise the both of them.

“Mmm?” Gemma turned and caught their gaze, leaning her back up against the wall. “I know.”

“And there are some of those things that I  _ should _ tell people.” Matty drew a shaky intake of breath. “Should have told them before everything could get into a mess. Whether that was months ago or years ago…”

“It’s up to you whether you tell anyone or not.” Gemma told them rather plainly, keen to see how Matty might respond. “You don’t  _ owe _ anyone everything.”

“I owe them something when I’ve… lied… maybe not lied  _ directly _ , but purposefully avoided the truth, don’t you think?” Matty gave way to a sigh, wondering quite how they could frame this all.

Gemma gave a shrug. “That’s different, isn’t it?”

Matty nodded, their gaze falling down to the floor, fixated upon the movement of their feet back and forth against it. 

They lit themself another cigarette. Gemma watched wide eyed, but didn’t mention it.

“You remember Sarah?” Matty’s voice brought a whole new meaning to murmured, but still in the quiet of the room, and still of the house, Gemma could make out every word, like each word was blasted from speakers, vibrating against her bedroom walls and enveloping her entirely.

“Course.” She managed a smile. “How could I forget?”

Matty’s attempt at a smile was pathetic: half-hearted at best. “I fucked her brother.”

“You  _ what _ ?” Gemma’s eyes grew so wide that Matty wondered if they might be in danger of falling out. “ _ When _ ?  _ Why _ ?”

Matty swallowed hard. “Yeah…”

“Jesus Christ, Matty, is that why she broke up with you?” Gemma turned her mind back to her teenage years, coming to picture the whole era in an entirely new light.

“No, this was after.” Matty gave way to a sigh. “I  _ know _ . I’m not proud of it, but I was sixteen, and I… I kind of thought I loved him, you know? In that weird way you do when you’re young and stupid.”

“ _ Matty- _ ”

“I didn’t love him, though. I just loved what he could give me.” Matty’s words seemed so groundly finite: bringing all of the world together, under their spell, just to smash it back down into pieces.

“What he could give you…?” Gemma’s voice trailed off, meeting Matty with a look of confusion.

“Yeah.” Matty gave a nod. “I think you know what I mean.” They drew a breath. “He was…  _ that _ guy.”

“ _ That _ guy…” Gemma’s eyes grew wide, struggling to adjust her entire perspective on the world at sixteen to accommodate Matty’s long postponed confession. “And you  _ loved _ him?”

“No. Never. Not really. I blushed when he called me beautiful, but that’s not love - that’s just human. I came when he fucked me, but that’s not love - that’s just the way things are. I spent a whole summer with him, but I doubt things would have really been like if it wasn’t for…” 

Matty trailed off, almost as if they physically couldn’t force the word through their lips. Gemma offered them a sympathetic smile - it was mind numbing at best, but they appreciated the gesture nonetheless.

“Why did you never tell me that?” She asked, daring to open that box too.

“Because I’m an idiot, and I’m a fucking coward, that’s why.” Matty set it out simply, falling into laughter: forced and pathetic at best.

“That’s not true.” Gemma insisted.

Matty rolled their eyes. “I don’t need you to lie to me; I’ve done enough of that for myself.”

-

George was on his last cigarette, curled up in bed, waiting for the world to pass him by, as he pushed every slight problem and issue as physically far away from him as possible.

It was just as he began to relax into the meaningless afternoon, and the muffled sounds of his mum moving about downstairs - making dinner or something like that, that everything snapped right in two. The quiet of the house was broken with the ringing of the doorbell, and the sound of approaching footsteps, and the whole world seeming to grow louder in George’s ears.

He stared down at the empty packet that he’d discarded onto his bedside table and groaned. This was all just so impossibly shit; he didn’t want to think, not about stupid noises, not about whatever fucking stupid person could be downstairs - he didn’t want to indulge himself with the addictive inadequacies of life. He just wanted peace, or if not that, quiet, at the very least.

But as the sounds of muffled conversation died down, footsteps didn’t turn away and back up the drive, for George to peer from his bedroom window down at the figure if he so inclined. The footsteps, instead, diverted themselves inside, and up the stairs.

George felt his heart doubling over in his chest, as he let such footsteps echo through his body, lying there - not far off the simple epitome of hopelessness.

But when his bedroom door was finally pushed open, Matty was perhaps the last person he’d expected to see.

“Hey…” Matty offered George a small smile from across the room, closing the door behind them, and sitting themself down on the bed beside him. They didn’t pretend like nothing was wrong; they didn’t pretend like the likelihood wasn’t that it was their fault.

“You don’t look like you’re in the best state.” Matty thought it served a better purpose than an ‘are you okay?’ - after all, Matty was already well aware of the answer to that.

“My head’s a bit… of a mess.” George concluded, pulling himself up onto his elbows, and moving so he was sat down next to Matty. “How are you?”

Matty gave a shrug, resting their head against George’s bicep. “Honestly, I don’t even fucking know.”

George managed a smile, moving his other arm to brush Matty’s hair out of their face, tucking it neatly behind their ears. Matty’s cheeks grew pink, like they were strangers again - perhaps for what they were about to discuss, it was easier to prepare that they were.

“Love you.” George told them, heart aching in the way the words rolled off his tongue.

Matty nodded in response. “Love you too.” They drew out a sigh, picking idly at their fingernails. “We need to talk, though. You know, course you know.”

“About…” George trailed off, throat almost seeming to close up behind that first word.

“About something important. About why I lied, about what I said.” Matty let their gaze fall to the floor, moving closer into George for comfort.

“Yeah.” George gave a nod. “I think we need to.”

“Just… don’t… just…” Matty’s words were unwilling: tentative at best. “Try not to think of me…  _ vastly _ differently. I mean, you probably will, but try and keep that to a minimum. We all do fucking stupid things when we’re sixteen, things we’re not proud of, things we try and keep from the whole world, things we tell stupid lies and fuck with people we love to hide them.”

Matty bit their lip. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t say that.” George pressed. “You don’t need to be.”

“Shut up.” Matty rolled their eyes. “You need to stop thinking the world of me, I’m really, I’m not the perfect person you seem to think I am.”

“Matty, I don’t think the world of you because I think you’re perfect.” George reached for their hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. “I think the world of you because you’re  _ you _ . And I love you.”

“Oh…” Matty swallowed their words, leaving their mouth dry and their eyes wide, and an incomprehensible mess floating around their chest. But they’d come over to tell the truth, to fix this for all, or at least the best they could, and there was no turning back from that now.

“So…” George prompted, as silence began to settle back in around them. “What is this about?”

And Matty took a breath: deeper than they had ever before, and even with all the anxiety in the world arguing otherwise, they parted their lips.

“James.” The word left Matty’s chest with what felt like the weight of the entire world.

George’s eyes grew widened, his face settling out into a frown as it all really began to sink in. “Oh… what about him?”

“Well, it’s not really about  _ him _ , it’s about me.” Matty lowered their voice as they spoke, as though that might make things easier somehow. “He’s just… there’s this thing. Like it’s this  _ one _ thing that… I want to hide from the world, that I never want anyone to know, because it’s… it’s bad. I don’t want you to believe I’m better than that, because I wasn’t, because I’m not.”

“Does  _ anyone _ else know?” It was less of a question and more of George just wondering out loud.

“Gemma.” Matty explained, pulling their mind back to how things had been, back at sixteen, when the world had seemed so small and simple. When they’d almost even believed that they’d lived on top of it.

“I never told her, though.” Matty continued, pulling at the hem of their shirt. “She  _ found out _ . I mean, someone had to, then, when everything was such a mess - it was inescapable, really. I got bad.”

“What do you mean…  _ ‘bad’ _ ?” George reached his arm down to Matty’s waist in an attempt to comfort them.

“Me and James knew each other before that night. When we first kissed. I lied about that.” Matty began, setting things out as plainly as possible.

“Oh…” George trailed off: unsure as to why that was particularly worth lying about.

“We’d never kissed before then, though. I guess he never knew I was into guys before that shitshow. I don’t know. I never asked. We never talked about those sorts of things.”

“How did you know him?” George wasn’t sure if Matty even wanted him to interrupt, to ask questions, or to just let them regurgitate everything out as fast as they could.

“He wasn’t a proper drug dealer, but he… knew some people, and I mean, it was just where my friends went. So, we got…  _ acquainted _ , but then one of my friends got close with this guy who could get weed, so everyone went to him instead.”

“Oh… alright…” George was still yet to quite see what was the great truth hidden away in all of this.

“I kept going to see him regardless. Not because I liked him. I wonder if he thought it was because I liked him in the end. I don’t know. I don’t care.” Matty drew a sigh, throwing their gaze down to the floor.

“Then why did you? Keep going back to him?” George did everything he could to keep his mind from leaping to conclusions, but once his brain started to tick, he just couldn’t stop it.

“Needed more than just weed.” Matty gave way to a sigh, moving away from George and falling back onto his bed. The room fell into silence, and they just stared up at the ceiling for a while.

“Like what?” George finally dared to ask, voice cracking as he attempted to do so.

Matty didn’t answer for a good five minutes, wasting away in the silence, under the moment, as the cold air blew in through the window and grasped them both in its icy grasp. For a moment or two, Matty wondered if they might ever get free.

“Cocaine.”

“Fuck…” George’s eyes grew wide. He pulled his eyes over to Matty, and reached for their hand.

Matty let George pull his fingers in around theirs. “I stopped. Gemma made me. It was horrible. And I’m not going to talk about that. I’m not going to  _ think _ about that. But I want you to… to  _ think _ , to think about me, to think about the person I am, and not the person you might like me to be. You think too much of me. We both know it’s true.”

George didn’t say anything at all. Instead he moved closer to Matty, laying himself down beside them, keeping their hands clasped together, as he moved to press their shoulders against one another.

“Say something.” Matty’s words cut into the silence, leaving an ugly scar.

“What do you want me to say? To hate you for mistakes you made two years ago?” George shook his head. “That’s stupid.”

“To re-evaluate the person you think I am. Because I  _ lied _ . I  _ lied _ . I lied to you. When it mattered, when it was important.”

“You lied.” George gave a nod, holding Matty’s gaze just for a brief moment. “And you shouldn’t have, but I can understand why you did. And I’m not going to hold it against you.”

“Do you just not  _ get _ it? George, I’m a  _ terrible _ person-”

“Matty, love…” George turned onto his side in order to properly face them. “I  _ know _ .” He managed a grin. “But you’re also a wonderful person too. And you just don’t get that, do you?”

“I’m not a wonderful person.” Matty muttered, eyes fixated up upon the ceiling.

“You are.” George leaned over, whispering his words against Matty’s ear: like a secret between the two of them. “Let me show you that.”

“How?” Matty was uncertain: eyes wide and uneasy.

George twisted his lips up into a smile. “You’ll see.”

-

Red. 

George had chosen them not just to be sappy, but to coordinate with Matty’s lipstick, of  _ course _ .

When Matty opened their front door that Saturday evening, they stared blankly at the roses: a red bouquet in George’s hands.

“What is this…?” Matty trailed off, eyes going wide as they took the roses from him.

“Roses.” George supplied, like it wasn’t obvious. “I think they’re nice - match your lipstick. That’s proof I put thought into it, isn’t it? Because you’re a wonderful person who deserves that.”

“Is  _ that _ … what this is?” Matty stared down at the roses, a little dumbfounded.

George cracked a smile. “Come on - we’re going out.”

“ _ Where _ ?” Matty furrowed their brow, taking the roses and placing them down on the cupboard inside. They stared at them for a good long moment. “No one’s ever bought me flowers before.”

George flushed red: the colour of the roses, the colour of Matty’s lipstick, the colour of two hearts, beating rapidly inside their chests.

“Where are we going?” Matty pressed, attempting to regain their cool as much as they could. “I thought you were just coming over, I’m not really-”

“You look  _ lovely _ .” George assured them. “Come on, I’m taking you on a date.”

Matty’s eyes grew impossibly wide. “ _ What _ ?”

“A date.” George repeated, reaching for Matty’s hand. “Come on, I literally stole my mum’s car for this, you can’t bail on me now.”

Matty snorted, taking George’s hand. “I thought you were supposed to be the good influence.”

-

“Those stars,  _ there _ .” George grabbed Matty’s hand, directing it up at the night sky. “The ones in that group - they look a bit like a pair of tits.”

“Really insightful, George,  _ thanks _ .” Matty couldn’t help but laugh, falling back against George’s chest, as they stared up at the sky.

It was something close to two in the morning, with the whole world laid out before them, as after a night out together, spent being stupid and so very in love, George had driven them out to the very edge of the town, to the top of a hill that seemed to overlook the whole world.

Matty wasn’t sure if it was all the weed they’d smoked, or if they really did feel like they were very much on top of the it -  _ together _ . With George’s hand in their own, directing their attention to stupid conclusions drawn from patterns in the sky.

“You’re a star.” George had reached the sappy stage of high, pressing his finger against Matty’s chest.

Matty snorted. “I’m a burning ball of gas out in space? Very  _ romantic _ of you, George.”

“Shut up. You know what I mean.” George mumbled, pressing his words to Matty’s neck between kisses.

“You should stop leaving me so obvious hickeys, you know?” Matty drew their words out like a suggestion. Truthfully, they just didn’t much care either way.

George laughed against Matty’s neck, locking his lips onto a spot just under their jaw. “Never.”

Matty let out a mock moan of disappointment. In response, George made them moan for real.

Matty was just so awfully glad it was too dark to see their blush, because there was no way around the fact that their cheeks were just so red that they gave their lipstick a run for its money.

“I really do think you’re wonderful, you know?” George mumbled as he pulled away, resting Matty’s head in the crook of his neck.

“Mmm…” Matty gave a nod. “I’m  _ aware _ .”

“And I want you to believe it, you know?” He continued, words soft and gentle in the nighttime air.

“If I tell you I do, will it make you shut up?” Matty smirked, pulling their gaze up to George’s.

“Maybe just for a while.” George grinned, turning his head to press a kiss to Matty’s cheek. 

“Alright then.” Matty gave a sigh. “I’m wonderful.”

And as promised, George did shut up for a whole two minutes. And they lay, looking up at the stars, in love like the world they lived in was crafted entirely from fiction.

“Can I…” George trailed off, words beginning to form in the back of his head. “We’re both high, and this isn’t the best time, but it’s… I… I’m a bit worried about telling my dad about you.”

“Oh…” Matty did attempt to sober up a little, fixing their eyes onto George. “Is he going to be weird about it?”

“Don’t think so.” George drew a sigh. “Just… finding the right words. I mean… there’s…  _ Matty _ , and I love them, and they’re wonderful, and ridiculous, and terrible all at the same time… I…” George gave up.

Matty managed a laugh.

“What would you say?” George inquired, watching Matty carefully for a few moments.

Matty gave a shrug. “I don’t know. I’m not good at talking about myself, funnily enough. Like… there’s this dickhead called Matty, they’ve got shit hair, and a shit face, but some nice lipstick, and the first time I saw them in a skirt I almost came on the spot-”

“ _ Matty _ .” George’s eyes grew wide, cheeks flushing red in the darkness. “That did  _ not _ happen.”

Matty giggled, leaving George to make his own mind up about that one. “But yeah, I don’t really know what to say about myself.”

George pondered it for a moment more, before turning the situation on its head, hoping that might help things somehow. “What would you say about me then?”

At first Matty was hesitant, struggling to quite put anything substantial into words, but then as they caught George’s eyes, everything finally began to make sense again.

“Well…” Matty smiled at George through the darkness.

“There’s this boy… his name’s George, and he’s  _ everything _ .”

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey so i absolutely loved writing this fic.
> 
> it honestly made me fall in love with writing even more
> 
> i hope u even feel slightly the same way
> 
> as always, votes and comments are super appreciated
> 
> if you haven't, and care enough to, you can follow me on twitter geogredaniel, tumblr geogredaniel, instagram grlmmy
> 
> dont you worry I'm always working on more gay ass georgematty content because i live to make straight fans angry
> 
> love you so very much
> 
> hope you enjoyed this
> 
> i hope it meant something to you
> 
> it meant the world to me
> 
> i love this fic
> 
>  
> 
> thank you


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